Ripple Effect, Confluence of Circumstance
by Alveric
Summary: They arrived alone, one having lost his heart, the other her home. Being thrown together by an unprecedented twist of fate may just herald a second chance for both of them. Side-story to 'The Times That Weren't' etc. Cam/Sam
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 1**

P3R-278, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Cameron looked around at the mountainous terrain all around them as they walked up the escarpment back to the Stargate. Teal'c and Daniel were walking ahead of him while he took up the rear and let his gaze flow up the rocky face of the cliff overhanging their trail and into the cloudless sky above them, the deep blue in contrast to the almost iridescent reds and ochres of the large gas giant taking up a fifth of the sky. Sam would have loved to have seen those rings. The angle was oblique, but he could see the clearly delineated divisions created by the smaller inner moons of the brown dwarf they orbited, a failed star. He chuckled ruefully and bit his lip. Sam might have been a little proud of him for knowing that. He pushed the thought away, sealed it in its box and buried it once more. It had been over two months, but the wound was still raw, and even though Orlin and the Asgard and the Tok'ra had helped them save Earth from the Prior's plague, the price had been too high as far as he was concerned.

He passed a hand over his eyes and pushed it back to swipe the slate grey patrol cap off his head. He avoided looking back up into the sky until they were finally on the plateau that held the Stargate and its platform. He followed on slowly behind his friends and scanned the wide open space once more. If it weren't for the natives who lived in the vertically arranged tiers behind intricately detailed façades carved out of the cliff face, this place would be considered worthless. Unfortunately they could offer nothing in the struggle against the Ori, he just hoped they wouldn't be discovered by the extra-galactic crusaders.

Daniel was dialling home as Teal'c turned to look back at him. He nodded his head once and Cam returned the small gesture. The Jaffa was worried for him, Cam could tell that much now that he'd known the big guy for over two years and worked every day with him for nearly six months. Teal'c had been the one who finally pulled him away from her side after she'd passed. Cam had almost cursed his own immunity to the plague, granted to him after another Prior had cured him of his own bout on P8X-412. Although it had allowed him to stay at her side through the whole thing, it also meant he'd have to remain behind without her afterwards. An ugly thought. He pushed it away as well. Teal'c would be disappointed. Daniel would be angry. The wormhole sprang into existence inside the Stargate and Cam motioned his friends onwards while still some distance away himself. They nodded and climbed the shallow steps to walk through the event horizon. Cam continued on towards the metal ring and turned around to walk backwards so as to get one final look at the massive planet in the sky behind him. Sam would have loved that view.

He heard a sputtering sound and turned his head to see the event horizon twisting and sparking. He frowned heavily and stopped in his tracks, then blinked when the wormhole disrupted and dissolved away into nothingness. He walked back down the platform towards the DHD, but grew tense when the 'gate's inner track began spinning as chevrons lit up. He gripped at his P90 and took a ready stance behind the cover of the DHD pedestal. To say he was relieved when he heard General Landry's voice calling him over the radio when the wormhole established would be a slight understatement.

"Colonel Mitchell, this is Stargate Command. Do you copy?" intoned the General's gruff drawl.

"SGC, this is Mitchell, I copy. The wormhole just kinda fizzled out before I got to it, sir. I was about to redial and head on through." Cam said with a hand up to the radio attached to his tac vest.

"Hold off on that, Colonel. We got a lot of weird feedback telemetry over the connection just before it went and we want to know what's going on before you try coming through." Cam grimaced and stared around him at the rock-strewn desolation of the high mountain pass. He raised a hand to the radio.

"Copy that, Stargate Command, will start at a nine hundred and ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall and await further instructions." he grumbled and moved over to the platform to find somewhere semi-comfortable to sit as General Landry signed off with a little jibe at his lack of faith in them. He got to a hundred and forty-eight before he heard them. Whipping his head around to the south he saw the arrow-shaped Ori fighters and quickly got up to dash for the DHD. He was completely exposed up here. He immediately began dialling Earth, knowing the ships would head straight for the Stargate and drop ring platforms to secure it as a top priority. He slapped down the symbols of Earth's address with both hands as quickly as he ever had and then bobbed his head from side to side, waiting for the 'gate itself to finish all its spinning. As soon as the wormhole established he was on the radio.

"Stargate Command, this is Colonel Mitchell, I am about twenty seconds from being up to my eyeballs in Ori footsoldiers." As if to punctuate his statement he heard one of the fighters make a strafing run at him and quickly ducked behind the DHD while dirt and rocky debris showered over him and the control pedestal after several close impacts from its energy cannons. He quickly punched his IDC into the GDO and saw the green flag as it was accepted. "They're already using me for air-to-ground target practice. Open the iris so I can make a dash for the 'gate!" It took far longer than he would have liked for a reply to come through, what the hell was going on back there?

"Copy that, Colonel Mitchell, opening the iris." He checked his GDO for all greens as he sprinted for the 'gate and ran through, only to freeze when he met a wall of guns pointed at him.

"Um, hi guys, it's just me. You can close the iris now." he said with an incredulous smile on his lips as he took a step forward and every single gun made tiny compensating movements to follow him while their owners all began to narrow down their sights. He froze again and very slowly held his arms out wide, his right hand empty with fingers spread while his left held on to the stock of his P90. "What's going on?"

"Where's the rest of your team, Colonel?" asked Landry from the control room. He shook his head in confusion when he spotted Daniel and Teal'c standing right next to him.

"They're right next to you, sir. They came through over two hours ago." He looked around the room in astonishment while a Marine walked up to him slowly and took the P90 he held out wide to his left and reached for his Beretta against his leg, then walked around to take his combat knife from the back of his vest. "What is all this, General?" The klaxons and lights began flashing as Chief Harriman's voice came out over the base-wide comm.

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" The Marine put a hand on his shoulder and began leading him down the ramp mumbling in frustration under his breath.

"Here we go again."

* * *

USS Prometheus, above P7Y-195, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Sam hunkered down against her console as another blast just barely grazed the Tau'ri starship's shields. Grazed, but still took it down to nearly nothing. She cursed at the power behind the beam weapons on those Ori motherships. She felt Prometheus shift to port as Cameron swung them around wide trying to evade and realised inertial dampening must be failing. She was about to call for repair teams only to choke down on the words. It was only the two of them left on the ship now. The crew had been evacuated while Colonel Pendergast and SG-1 drew the Ori back into hyperspace. It hadn't been a long chase.

She glanced to her side quickly, only once, to see the Colonel's body still impaled in the command chair. She let her eyes drift past that to see Cameron still wrestling with the flight controls. She refused to look behind her because she knew it only meant she'd see Daniel and Teal'c in what was left of the rest of the bridge after the explosions. She didn't want to see that.

"Shields down to thirteen percent, Cam, we won't survive another hit." she warned as her fingers flew over the systems console in front of her, trying to coax a little more power out of the engines, a little more life from the shields.

"I know, Sam, I know." he replied and she whipped her head around to him at his tone. That was not a good tone.

"Cameron..." she called in warning, only for him to furiously whip his hands around his board as Prometheus abruptly lurched downwards. Sam felt another grazing shot pass over them as screams of tearing metal and explosions sounded all around them. Shields were gone, only his piloting skills had kept them from being vaporised and even that wouldn't be enough next time. She looked over at him with wide eyes as she suddenly realised what he was planning. "It won't even be a drain on their shields, Cam." He just smiled sadly at her before pressing several buttons on his board and looking at her mournfully.

"I know, Sam, good-bye." he said softly with tears filling his blue eyes. She was up out of her seat even before she saw the white shimmering, knowing exactly what he was going to do.

"No! Cameron!" she called into the empty air in the middle of a circle of standing stones with a Stargate at its center. She looked up quickly as tears filled her vision and cried out in despair when she spotted a brief flash in the night sky almost directly above her head. That selfish son of a bitch! She was going to kill him! When she realised what had just passed through her head she pitched down onto her knees with her hands over her eyes and cried out again in anger and defeat. She hunched over into a ball and pressed her head down against the ground as she shuddered with violent spasms and the tears flowed freely from her eyes, through her fingers and into the hard scrabbled earth under her. What did he expect her to do now? He never thought that far ahead! He never thought that maybe she would want to be with him at the end, did he?. The _asshole_! Where was she going to go? The Alpha and Beta Sites were gone, the Tok'ra and the Jaffa were nearly wiped out. The SGC was the last holdout on Earth after the Ori ships had arrived in orbit. She shuddered and screwed her eyes shut with a grimace. She'd go there. If she was going to die and it couldn't be with him then she'd die at home. Damn him.

She clutched at the dirt under her and pushed herself up and back on to her knees. She should be quick about it. The Ori would send ships down soon. She got to her feet and walked over to the DHD, rubbing at her face with the slate grey sleeves of her BDU jacket. She began putting in Earth's address into the pedestal and fished in her pocket for her radio, switching it from a shipboard frequency to one used at Stargate Command. She fished in her other pocket for a GDO and grinned ruefully to herself when she heard the arrival of the Ori fighters. As expected. When the wormhole formed she punched in her IDC and brought up the radio to her lips.

"Stargate Command, this is Colonel Carter. I'm alone and about to get swamped under by Ori fighters any second. I need that iris open on the double." she ordered into the radio. She waited and waited, wondering whether the green flag marking her IDC as good was only the automatic reply of the computers still working after everyone at the base was already dead. She looked up at the wormhole and shook her head, deciding she didn't care any more. She began walking towards the event horizon even as the GDO reported the iris was closed.

"Confirmed, Colonel, opening the iris." came Walter's reply and she nearly sighed in relief as she stepped through only to be faced with several squads of Marines pointing machine guns at her and one very shocked looking Cameron Mitchell at the foot of the ramp in his grey BDUs, though she wondered at his tac vest. The iris closed behind her and she blinked rapidly as her brow knit in surprise. How had he gotten off the ship and back to Earth? Had he gone into hyperspace? They were nowhere near any other planets. Why was he looking at her like that? Like he was seeing a ghost. Well, that was his own damn fault anyway. She began striding down the ramp right for him as the Marines wavered and backed up before her.

"You son of a bitch! Don't you ever do something like that again, do you understand?" she cried as she walked up to Cameron and punched him in the chest before wrapping her arms around him and holding him tightly. "I thought you had died, Cam. What would I do if you had died?" she murmured into his neck as she clutched tightly at the back of his tac vest and he hesitantly put his arms around her shoulders.

"Sam? You're not dead? What-? Why-?" he said in an increasingly broken voice. "How can you not be dead? I saw you die! I held your hand when you died!" He was crushing her to him now, painfully so, but she didn't care. She also didn't care that he was babbling nonsense.

"And whose fault is that? Beaming me off the ship when you're about to ram theirs. How could you, Cam? How could you even think that?" She shook him lightly as her voice also broke with her own pain. "You're all I have left, you bastard." she breathed.

"I'm really sorry about this." came a familiar drawl from behind her and she stiffened, just as Cameron stiffened as well. That was Cam's voice, but he hadn't spoken.

"It's quite possible neither of you is who the other thinks they are." came a melodious voice from the same direction which was just impossible. Impossible because it was her own voice. She whipped around in Cameron's arms to see herself, just standing there in green BDUs, with a similarly attired Cameron, and both looking rather apologetic.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 2**

Stargate Command, January 2006

This had to be some sort of Hell. Some god-like alien critter had intercepted him mid-transit through the wormhole and was subjecting him to some insane experiment, dredging up what could only be his worst possible nightmare. He absent-mindedly took a deep breath as the nurse directed him, it was practically a conditioned response now, the whole post-mission check-up. His cognitive centers actually disengaged from his body during them and he just let his mind wander, and right now it was wandering in the direction of thinking this had to be Hell. How else to explain _her_. Not just her, but the other half-dozen hers he'd seen yammering away together in a room on the way up here to the infirmary. Only a twisted, mindgame playing freak would do something like this.

Except he could tell it was real. He could tell that she wasn't some construct of his mind. Because _she_ wasn't _her_. They weren't the same woman. He could tell that. The way she was staring at him from her own perch on the opposite bed told him she was just as freaked out and scared as he was.

"Major Lescott, in his office, with the phone." she said with a challenging look. He canted his head for a moment until he caught her reference.

"You used a laser mic, I listened in on the secretary's phone." he replied and she blinked and looked away. "New Year's Eve, 1989?" She looked up with wide eyes and blushed. Yeah, she remembered.

"We..." She paused and closed her eyes, he couldn't blame her, this was freaking him out too. "Cam and I went to Memorial Park to watch the fireworks. He needed some cheering up after the bowl game. When the New Year rolled around the singer jumped out into the crowd and kissed the nearest guy and we..." she trailed off and he just nodded. "I'm sorry I hit you." she breathed. "He'd just beamed me off and I was so relieved when I saw you and thought you were him and..." She turned aside with watery eyes as the nurses finished up at around the same time and walked away. He just looked down at the floor, unsure what he should be feeling right now. She was so much like her. So much. "I'm sorry about... you said she... I'm sorry." she was whispering as she turned to face him and he shook his head.

"I'm sorry too, you said he beamed you away as he was about to ram them. Ori?" he asked hesitantly, glancing over as she hunkered down slightly and nodded. "I'm sorry." He was prevented from saying anything further by the arrival of Dr. Carolyn Lam as she was juggling a pair of clipboards and clicking a pen before adding some notes.

"Right, sorry about this, I know this has to be incredibly confusing for both of you, but it's just incredibly confusing in general. You are something like the eighth and ninth groups to come in through this... 'inter-reality funnel' as we're calling it... and the first to come through alone." She glanced at each of them, at Cam's sad expression and Sam's look of shocked despair. "I won't ask why." She came to stand closer to Sam and laid her clipboards on the bed next to her while she rested a hand gently on the other woman's arm. "If you need to talk," she glanced at Cameron as well, "either of you. Someone will be available. Unfortunately you will have to go through a debriefing. I'm sorry, I can get them to hold off for a while, but you will eventually need to answer some questions about your own realities for us."

"You never know what little detail could be of help." Sam whispered as she turned an unsteady gaze on the younger woman who simply nodded.

"Would you like to rest-"

"No. I understand you're letting the other mes... Carters... work on the problem." Sam said curtly as she hopped off the bed. Carolyn nodded, but tried to hold Sam back with a hand. "Then I want to help. Now. Please." Dr. Lam just nodded after a moment and signalled to one of the SFs by the door who stepped forward and motioned for Sam to follow him. She began walking towards the door before stopping and turning to face Cameron. "Maybe we can..." She grimaced and closed her eyes.

"Yeah, maybe we can." he said softly, unsure what he'd just agreed to, knowing only that she looked like she needed for him to agree to it. Sam looked at him before nodding and walking out the door. He almost shuddered.

"The Sam Carter in your reality died?" asked Carolyn as she crossed her arms and walked over to his bed. Cam looked at her and nodded.

"Before we zeroed in on the formula for the cure. Before Gerak came and healed everyone." He choked up and looked down. "I... held..." He shook his head and hopped off the bed. "I don't even know what is happening. This seems like a nightmare." he whispered as he began to make his way out of the infirmary himself.

* * *

Stargate Command, January 2006

She had always known Cam had vast reserves of inner strength. She just never imagined they could be this deep. He _had_ to be suffering, seeing all these Samantha Carters everywhere and his having just passed away. She wondered if she should be doing this, but to be honest, having both come through without teammates gave them more in common with each other than with the rest of them who had each other to lean on. She lifted her tray and walked over to the table where he was sitting in solitude. She hovered nearby for a while until he looked up and she raised her eyebrows enquiringly. He nodded and looked back down at his plate as she sat across from him.

"I'm not sure whether I'll be any sort of good company, but I'll try my best." he said softly and she nearly choked at how it immediately made her think of her own Cam. She pushed the thought away, it wasn't fair to anyone. "How's it going with the other Carters?" he asked as he pierced a meatball with his fork and put it in his mouth. She poked at her salad and smirked slightly.

"We work well together. Just don't ask us to write a paper about it because it will be a whole bunch of half-finished sentences which lead immediately into the next insight." She glanced up at him as he nodded slightly, watching her. "It makes me appreciate how I have to discipline my thoughts when explaining my theories to anyone. It actually helped on occasion when Cam always asked..." she trailed off with a faint smile. "You know what I mean." He nodded after he began to eat again.

"I loved scientist-mode Sam, always did. It's just that most times, we were on the clock." he muttered. She glanced up again with a slight knitting of her brow. She had to remember that the thing they both shared, the thing that set them apart from the rest, was they both had to speak in the past tense.

"Unfortunately, things aren't looking good. Every idea we come up with runs into some stumbling block or another. It's getting frustrating." she said softly while he nodded. She looked up as he chopped a meatball in half. "Cameron." He tensed slightly when she said his name, it was like a hesitation. He gave her a small 'hmm' as he carried on eating. "Why did you come through alone?" He chortled.

"Freak chance." he explained. "I got caught off-world when the wormhole Daniel and Teal'c took back to Earth fizzled out before I got to it. They just happened to already be at our SGC when I came here after the Ori arrived on P3R-278." Sam held up her hand to get him to look at her.

"Your open wormhole 'fizzled out'?" she asked and he nodded. "How long between that and when you came here?" She scrutinised his openly confused look.

"About eight hundred and fifty bottles of beer on the wall." he replied and she actually laughed. That was such a Cam thing to say. She blinked, wondering when the last time she'd laughed had been. She shook her head and forced her mind to working.

"I think your first wormhole was active at the time this rupture formed." she offered with a glance in his direction. "Can you describe what you mean by 'fizzled out'?"

"Hmm, the event horizon seemed to twist in the ring, and spark at the edges. Then it just dissolved away from the inside out." he described. She looked down.

"That's... that is odd." she admitted before looking up again. "Thanks, Cam. I think that might help us." She smiled at him and he blinked rapidly before looking down at his food and nodding.

"That's good." he offered with a slight furrow of his brows. They ate quietly for a while and Sam's guts were clenching tighter with each passing moment. He was Cameron, but he wasn't Cameron. All of her senses, all of her feelings and all of her heart told her he was Cameron. while all of her logic, all of her intellect and all of her mind told her he wasn't. She found her hand reaching across the table and resting gently atop his. He tensed slightly and she nearly pulled away, it was only because his hand relaxed a little under hers that she kept it resting there.

"I look at all the Carters and Mitchells and I see such close bonds between them. It doesn't seem to matter what reality they're from, they still care for one another." She didn't look up, but knew he was nodding. "Cameron and I, we... were just friends, but I had been hoping for more, been slowly working towards more... until we lost at Kallana and their ships came through." She dipped her head low and closed her eyes when she felt his other hand rest over the top of her fingers. "I never got to tell him. I... almost did a few times, but never..." she trailed off before looking up slowly. "What about you and your Sam?" she asked, a little hint of fear in her voice.

"Just friends." he said with a sigh. "Always hoped for more. I couldn't tell her in the end. Not like that. She wouldn't have gone peacefully." he whispered.

"Sorry." she said, her voice choking up, and pulled her hand away. He shook his head and picked up his fork once more.

* * *

Stargate Command, January 2006

He was walking down the corridor towards the rec-room, hoping to find anything that would distract him. They'd just finished watching a video of the basketball game in an improvised theatre, but it hadn't been the action on the screen which held his interest. Sam had sat next to him. He frowned slightly, she wasn't his Sam, but he didn't want to call her Carter as he did the others, it didn't feel right, not when she had no one else to use her given name.

She'd sat next to him as they watched. He'd not managed to get that much into the screening and being on the losing side didn't help even if he got the game high for assists. No, the game hadn't held his interest much. She had. Whenever a close play came up or someone tried for a long range jumper, she'd grab his arm or jump in her seat or hunch down with her hands over her face. He closed his eyes and sighed. It was strange, to say the least, feeling guilty about not feeling particularly guilty. It was there deep down, but his heart was just confused about the whole situation. She was Sam, but she wasn't Sam.

It wasn't long after the screening had been arranged that news had come down to the stranded SG teams that the plan had become one of containment as opposed to reversal. Even while this reality's Mitchell was preparing a room and coordinating to get all the Carters together for a block of time, his Carter was working with Kvasir and the Martouf that had come through the funnel to prepare an energy bomb to fire into the singularity in order to seal the rupture without returning anyone. Now they were just waiting. A part of him wasn't that upset about it.

"Hey! 2099!" He turned at the sound of his own voice calling him by his b-ball moniker. It was his team captain, the Mitchell in black BDUs whose SG-1 had been first through the 'gate in this funnel incident. He waited until his other self caught up with him and then fell into step alongside him. He glanced at the man and recognised the strange hesitancy in his posture. "This is kinda strange to bring up with you in your situation, but I suppose I probably should anyway." He frowned at the strange topic from the black-clad Mitchell. "If a time comes, you never know, just in case," he looked at Cam pointedly, "cut the green one." An odd sort of warning that didn't make much sense since he was likely never going home. Just then Mitchell's counterpart Carter walked up the corridor and seemed to share a look with him which was returned in kind.

"Mitchell, I was looking for you." she said softly. Cam tilted his head. "Your... well... the Carter in the bluish grey like yours." She motioned to his t-shirt and BDU trousers. "I think she needs you right now."

"What do you mean?" he asked hesitantly. "She and I aren't-"

"I know, I know, but... well, she talks to you. I think you can help her." she elaborated only to confuse him more. "Come with me." She reached out and grabbed his hand while giving her Mitchell another look, he only shrugged and followed behind Carter and Cameron, turning to engage the SFs in conversation. "She's kind of holed up in the women's locker room." Carter explained gently. Cam was about to speak when she just carried on. "She's just sat under the shower, not responding to any of us. I thought she might respond to you." she explained with a shrug. She pushed open a door and gave the Mitchell behind them a little shake of her head while she bustled Cameron inside. There were a few other Carters in there who just looked at him and then nodded, bustling out almost as a unit. This was just too strange. Carter stopped at the door and waved him on as he turned to look at her in confusion. What were they expecting him to be able to do?

He turned and walked on slowly until he reached the shower stalls, the curtains were drawn on one of them and the water was going full blast as steam rose up over the plastic sheeting into the rest of the locker room. He grimaced slightly and sighed, but turned around to lean against one of the columns between the stalls and slid down until he was seated on the floor. He heard some shuffling and shifting from behind the curtain.

"Sam, it's me." he said simply, unsure what exactly he could say. It wasn't as if he were her Cameron or anything, they weren't from the same reality, their only connection was their arrival time and how they both arrived alone. "I don't know what the problem is, but if you need someone to talk to, I'll listen." He closed his eyes, almost hoping she'd tell him to leave. There was only silence, minutes of silence, but he didn't feel as if he could leave unless she actually told him to.

"I've been using you." came a very soft voice, almost hidden by the noise of the shower. "I've been using you to keep from having to... face any of it." Cameron let his head hang down against his chest as he sighed. Of course. She'd just lost her team from what he could understand. Literally minutes before stepping through the 'gate to this reality.

"It's okay-" he began, trying to reassure her.

"No, it's not!" she cried as he heard movement and felt her close the gap between them so she was leaning against the wall by the plastic sheet. "You've only just... You buried her just two months ago and I've just been avoiding thinking about any of it at all." He turned his head towards the curtain, but said nothing. "I dialled Earth expecting to die on the other side of the wormhole." she whispered just loudly enough to cross the gap between them through the water and plastic. "Even if the iris was closed." His eyes widened in alarm and he turned himself to face the curtain and slipped a hand between the bottom of the sheet and the raised lip of the shower stall, it was immediately enclosed in grasping fingers from the other side.

"Sam, I don't think you want to die." he said softly and she squeezed his hands as she chortled mirthlessly.

"No, I didn't _want_ to die. I just didn't care whether I lived anymore." she said in a broken monotone. "We'd failed in our mission, the Ori knew exactly where we were going in Prometheus and ambushed us." He felt her hands tugging at his and figured she was shrugging. "I suppose we might have been betrayed, it doesn't matter anyway. And now we're all stuck here." One of her hands slipped off his and he saw a gap emerge between the tiled column and the shower curtain and he looked at her profile as she glanced at him from behind the wall. "I've been working hard to try to get you home, I swear to you that I have." He nodded. "I need you to believe me, I don't want you to think I wasn't invested in the work just because I'm not going back myself." He frowned deeply and leaned forward slightly to look into her eyes. "There's nothing left for me to go back to, Cam. I was always going to ask to stay behind. This is a second chance, and I'd rather use it where I can make a difference." she whispered with a watery gaze. He could tell she was on the verge of tears despite the water all around them. "I'm still going to keep trying, right up until they close the rupture. I promise you."

"I believe you, Sam, and I believe _in_ you." he said reassuringly. He held her hand as he had held Sam's those many weeks before. Lightly pressing each of her fingers in turn between his hand and a sliding thumb. He closed his eyes as memories of her hooked up to all that medical equipment in the isolation room washed over his mind. He forced the images back with difficulty before speaking again. "You're not alone anymore. Everyone here cares for you as if you were their own Sam." he breathed and he felt her fingers squeezing his while she chuckled silently.

"I know you believe that, Cam. You were always so stupidly optimistic." she said before audibly choking back a sob. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He gripped her hand tightly. "I did it again."

"It's okay, Sam, really, it's okay." he assured her as he peeked around the tiled column as she held her other hand to her eyes. "I don't mind. Honest." This was just too strange for him to really understand. Asking himself whether he should be feeling guilty or not when the feelings he was having were for a Sam who wasn't his Sam, but was so like his Sam she could be his Sam. And when he thought about how she would be feeling it just made his head swim. "I'm not your Cameron Mitchell, but I am still Cameron Mitchell. You're not my Sam Carter, but you are Sam Carter." he elaborated while shaking his head in his own confusion. "I don't want to think about the distinctions anymore." he admitted finally. He felt her hand slip out of his and he sighed, pulling his own hand back out from under the curtain. He stood up and leaned against the column for a moment. "That's how I feel. I'll just... I'll go now." he said softly as he caught her own movement as she stood up behind the plastic sheet before he turned around.

He took a step forward only to be surprised at finding arms slipped around him from behind and clutching at his chest as Sam pressed herself against his back. Water ran in rivulets down the skin of her arms as the warmth of the shower spread from her to him through his BDUs, soaking through the back of his slate grey shirt as she held on to him. He felt her heart pounding in her chest as it pressed against his back, felt the water which ran off her hair landing on his neck and shoulder as she laid her cheek against the back of his head, felt her fingers gripping tightly at the front of his shirt to keep from shaking. He reached up to take a hold of one of her wrists and pulled on it to bring her around in front of him and wrapped her in his embrace as she buried her face in his neck. He spread his hands across her back and rubbed gentle circles into her rapidly cooling skin as she shivered against him and scrunched up the front of his shirt in her fingers against her chest. A glance showed Carter approaching with a towel opened and raised and he nodded as she stepped up and wrapped Sam's shoulders in the soft white terrycloth and gently pulled her away from Cameron into an embrace of her own. Carter gave him a small grateful smile and he nodded as she led Sam past the line of lockers and out of sight. He glanced over his shoulder and sighed softly as he saw the shower was still running. He shook his head while looking down at his soaked clothes and shrugged. When he stepped out into the corridor again his SF escort looked at him curiously and he just shrugged once more while he walked towards the men's locker room, dripping water with each squeaking step of his boots.

"I think I'm going to need a change of clothes." he said softly to the Marine, who merely nodded in return.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 3**

Stargate Command, January 2006

"Cameron!" she cried as she came up behind him and he turned around in his seat in front of the television in the rec-room. He wasn't the only one of course, about four other Mitchells turned around, all but one turned back when they saw it was Sam in her slate grey BDUs who'd called out as she approached with another Carter, the youthful civilian scientist. She glanced at the other Mitchell who hadn't turned back, her companion's 'Shaftboy', who stood up to come around the couch. Cam also stood, moved around the back of the chair he'd commandeered and walked over to her and the ponytailed Carter talking shyly with the younger Mitchell. "Sam and I have figured out how the rupture was originally formed!" she said excitedly while tugging on his arm and getting him to follow her. He turned to Shaftboy who was similarly being tugged forward and just shrugged at his smirk. She nearly chuckled in spite of herself. "With this much information we might be able to get General Landry to stop the operation." she clarified.

"We don't have a lot of time then." he said as they got into the elevator. She nodded absent-mindedly.

"It was your description of the fizzling wormhole that settled it." she elaborated as she dropped into rapid-fire scientist-mode. "Sam here noticed that something was wrong with our assumptions. They didn't fit together and it was all to do with the assumed transit of unstable matter which is supposed to have caused the rupture."

"Except matter transit doesn't fit everything we've observed," added Dr. Carter with a quick frown, "but an energy burst transit does." Both Camerons were already at the point of just nodding and smiling.

"Right, which fits in with what you saw." Sam carried on as she gave Cameron a small smile. "An energy transit of coherently charged polerons of sufficient magnitude could create the vibrational instability necessary to rupture and merge the P-brane mesh of two separate realities."

"_If_ the disruption passes through the event horizon of a singularity and interferes with the discharge of Hawking radiation at the point of the rupture." added Dr. Carter to Sam's excited nod.

"Right, which it did, as we know." Sam said with a smile when they exited the elevator. Cam looked at the SFs standing behind them and they all smiled when he shrugged theatrically. Sam slapped his arm and glared at him. He was so much like her Cameron sometimes she couldn't help how she just reacted to him. She shook her head as they reached General Landry's office to find it empty. "Control Room." she murmured and they all made for the briefing room door and the stairway down.

"And how do we do that?" Landry asked into the subspace comms as they arrived downstairs.

"By doing exactly the same thing the first team did in order to get here." came Colonel Carter's voice from the speakers and all of them froze at the bottom of the stairs. Did she just hear that right? This was deliberate? She gasped and looked at Dr. Carter next to her with the same wide eyes she was seeing in return. Of course it was deliberate. Her mind was racing.

"Alright, Colonel. Return here on the double, Stargate Command-" Landry's sign off was interrupted as Sam called out.

"Wait, General, may I have a word with Colonel Carter?" she asked and Landry raised his eyebrows at the group suddenly filling his control room. He waved her forward and motioned for the SFs to stand off to the side. "Colonel? This is Colonel Carter from P7Y-195." She waited until she got an acknowledgement. "Dr. Carter P9R-152 and I figured out that the rupture was caused by a poleron disruption charge."

"Holy Hannah!" cried Carter over the radio. "Of course! That fits everything from the anomalous energy signature to the loud bang to the uni-directional nature of the disruptions. So to reverse it we need a different charge phase on the poleron stream-"

"With an inverse wave function in order to create a destructive interference burst to cancel out the effects of the first charge-" Dr. Carter added.

"Fired into an open wormhole connected to each individual destination, causing feedback when the connection closes which ripples back to seal that branch of the rupture." concluded Carter over the radio.

"Exactly." cried Sam and Dr. Carter together and she turned around to beam a smile at Cam only to catch him looking over at Captain Mitchell and General Landry with a confused frown. Landry rolled his eyes.

"It means I can send you home, Cameron." she explained with a softer smile than before. He blinked.

"Can you two get on those calculations to invert the field spread and charge equations?" asked Colonel Carter from Prometheus. "It would have been impossible for Carter to do the calculations beforehand since she'd likely have to use a different Stargate to get home, one which merges with the typical path of the Earth to PX7-455 wormhole at some point before the singularity."

"Because it's unlikely General Landry would just let them waltz through the SGC on their way back home." Sam added for the benefit of those in the group without in depth knowledge of high-energy physics.

"You have _that_ right, Colonel." Landry intoned gruffly before looking at her and the young Dr. Carter. "How soon can you get these calculations done?"

"A few hours should be enough to work out all the equations and verify it with some simulations." Dr. Carter said with a look Sam's way. She nodded her confirmation.

"After that it's a matter of calculating the specific parameters necessary for each individual wormhole. They'll each be slightly different." Sam added.

"Get to work, Colonel, Doctor. And rustle up the rest of your counterparts to speed it up if necessary." Landry ordered. Sam nodded with a quick 'yes, sir' and turned to head out into the corridor. Cam followed her out and tugged on her elbow to stop her. She nodded to Dr. Carter who carried on towards the elevator and the labs above with her Captain in tow. She looked at Cameron in curiosity as he frowned slightly and averted his gaze before motioning for her to walk on slowly. He gave a little nod to their escorts who fell back a little at the signal. Sam thanked them for the courtesy before looking over at Cameron again.

"You said you could send me home in there." he began hesitantly. She frowned and nodded. "Sam, I'm not the smartest or most perceptive guy in the world. I can be clueless about all sorts of things. So... don't take this the wrong way." She tilted her head slightly. "I've had a lot of time to sit and think while you and the other Carters have been working on this. The conclusion I kept running into is that diminishing returns is a cosmic phenomenon." Sam scoffed and chuckled at him. He gave her a little smirk.

"Are you trying to use my language to say 'too many cooks spoil the broth', Cam?" she asked with a little quirk of her eyebrow.

"That's how my Grandma would say it, yeah." he added and she smiled with a nod. "You're not going back to your reality." he stated after a moment and she nodded her confirmation. "Then, instead of this reality having two Sam Carters..." He drew his lips into a tight line and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She suddenly found she couldn't breathe. "Instead of sending me home, how about you send 'us' home?" he asked, stopping in the middle of the corridor. She walked on a step before turning around slowly.

"Are you asking me to move in with you?" she asked with a teasing curl of her lip. He blinked at her and then burst out into laughter as he caught her drift.

"I guess, at a universal level, I am." he replied as she smiled broadly. "It's better than just saying 'Mars needs women', am I right?" She laughed. It felt good to laugh, it felt so good to laugh with him, but she closed her eyes and lifted a hand to cover her mouth as a wave of pain came over her and she took in a shuddering breath. "Sam?" He reached a hand towards her and she moved closer to him, placing both her hands on his chest as she leaned against him. His hand found a grip on her elbow as the other settled on her hip. She looked down and waited a long moment before she could trust her own voice.

"Cam, I'm not her. I can't be her." She looked up and he was shaking his head.

"I know. I'd never ask you to be her. Just as I can't be him." he said gently. She looked down and nodded. "You said this was a second chance, that you wanted to use it to make a difference." She glanced up at him. "Think about it, this second chance will make more of a difference, it will mean more, somewhere where you'd be... unique." She closed her eyes and felt a tear roll down her cheek. He was right. He'd just cut through everything with a logic she should have seen herself right away.

"Are you sure?" she asked in a whisper as she looked into his deep blue eyes. Identical blue eyes. He nodded.

"I'm sure." he intoned. "I don't want to make you feel like you'd be a replacement. Just as I don't want to be a replacement for your Mitchell." She shook her head, but he lifted a hand to precipitate any protest. "The fact still remains, you lost your 'us' and we lost our 'you'." She pulled back and moved to the side of the corridor to lean against the wall. Cam followed and stood close by her. "I'm not saying it would be easy, that you'd just be accepted." She looked at him and just sighed, those things would still be true if she decided to stay here as well. "I will promise you one thing though, Sam. You'll have at least one person in your corner from the start." She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes again.

"Cam, I have to tell you something." she whispered without opening her eyes. "If you had asked me yesterday I would have said no. I'm scared of you. I'm scared of how similar you are to my Cameron, but also of how easily you affect me in ways he didn't. I just lost all my friends and family, my homeworld, my entire reality. I have nothing." She opened her eyes to look at him seriously. "But when you are here, I don't feel any of that. I only feel you." He watched her eyes for a moment.

"What did you say after you punched me in the 'gate room?" he asked in a soft whisper. "'You're all I have left'?" She covered her mouth with a hand as tears welled up in her eyes. "Maybe, Sam, we could agree you weren't talking about the other Mitchell when you said it." He canted his head and held a hand up to her. "Will you take me as I am, Sam? My reality? Because I'll take you as you are, if you let me." She looked down at his hand for a moment before glancing back at his eyes. Seeing only herself reflected in them and in the soft smile he was giving her. She pulled her hand from over her lips and laid her fingers in his raised hand, watching as his fingers slowly closed over hers. She leaned forward and laid her head on his shoulder as he pulled her in closely. "A second chance for all of us." he breathed.

* * *

P3R-278, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Cameron stepped through the 'gate, his P90 held up at the ready in expectation of a fusillade of Ori staff weapons, only to find a fire-fight in progress as Ori footsoldiers near the DHD were firing at what looked like SG personnel in the distance. He didn't hesitate, opening up on full-auto with Sam doing the same right alongside him, then dashing to drop off the platform in the direction of the Ancient control pedestal in order to find cover. The Ori had perhaps expected the incoming wormhole to disgorge reinforcements, so when he and Sam came through it caused disarray in the defenders. Once they'd cleared the platform area he reached for his radio while Sam covered his six.

"Jackson, Teal'c, this is Mitchell, do you copy?" he called urgently.

"Mitchell? Seriously?" came the voice of an incredulous archaeologist. "What the Hell happened? We lost contact with you days ago, and only got a destroyed MALP for our trouble when we tried to find out what happened."

"Long story. Listen, we have the Stargate area secure. What's going on?" he asked as he spotted Colonel Reynolds of SG-3 closing in on his location, as well as Major Webster of SG-15.

"We came in Prometheus, Colonel Mitchell, in an attempt to ascertain your fate." Teal'c put in. "We found a contingent of Ori soldiers garrisoned in the vicinity of the Stargate and in a small camp further down the mountain. We are in the process of expelling them from the cliff face village." Cam saw Daniel running his way from the cluster of SG-3 personnel led by Reynolds, only to freeze and pull up his P90 when he saw who was standing next to Cameron by the DHD. The rest of SG-3 and the approaching SG-15 did the same.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. She's with me, I'll explain everything." he said quickly, holding up his hands for calm. Sam slowly unclipped the P90 given to her in the alternate reality and lifted it upside down over her head with her hands well away from the trigger group to indicate her passivity.

"Who is that, Mitchell?" Daniel demanded angrily before raising a hand to his radio. "Teal'c, get up here as soon as you can."

"Acknowledged, Daniel Jackson." came the Jaffa's reply.

"It's Sam, Jackson. It's really Sam. I _will_ explain, just... calm down." Cameron said while Sam slowly offered her gun to an approaching member of SG-15. Daniel snarled without lowering his gun. "Colonel Reynolds, sir, help me calm him down, please." he said with a look to the tense leader of SG-3.

"Dr. Jackson, I know what it looks like-" began the Colonel only for Daniel to growl and cry out in anger before lowering his gun and turning around. "Mitchell, perhaps a quick explanation, for now." Cam turned to look at Sam who's features were a mixture of anxiety, sadness and worry for someone who must seem just like her friend.

"What is this, Mitchell? Sam is dead!" cried the linguist as he moved towards Cameron. "She died! You were there! Who is that?"

"Daniel, please..." he implored of his friend in a soft tone, the way he spoke gave a moment's pause to the archaeologist and Cam took advantage. "When the Ori arrived I dialled home ready to jump through the 'gate as soon as possible, but the SGC I dialled wasn't in this reality." he explained only for Daniel to scowl angrily.

"Several realities found wormholes to the SGC, which passed in the vicinity of the singularity created by the destruction of Kallana, intersecting and being funnelled into a single hub reality and-" Sam's attempt at an explanation only caused Daniel to glare at her. "Sorry."

"It's true, Jackson." Cam said. "I just spent several days in an alternate reality while sixteen different Carters, a Martouf and one Zelenka tried to figure out how to send us back."

"Even if I believed you, which I don't, who is she?" Daniel demanded with a finger pointed in Sam's direction. Just then, Teal'c came into view, jogging up the path in his loping Jaffa gait. When he spotted Sam he froze and immediately became guarded as a frown descended on his features. He began approaching slowly, his face a scowling stone mask.

"She's one of the Carters who was pulled in from another reality." Cam explained quickly. Daniel scowled at Sam and lifted an eyebrow, which was all he needed to do to ask the obvious question.

"My reality is lost to the Ori." Sam said softly. She sighed and straightened up, looking at Daniel sadly. "I had nothing to go back to. Earth has fallen by now. Off-world bases picked off one by one. Atlantis destroyed after we couldn't defend it from the Wraith. No allies left either. I had no one to go back to, Daniel. Not you, or Teal'c, or Cameron. So I took the coward's way out." Cam stiffened slightly at her choice of words and looked at her with a gentle glance. She shook her head. Teal'c walked right up to her and scrutinised her for several moments. She just smiled sadly at him.

"She is Colonel Carter, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c intoned with a low growl. "I would swear to it." Daniel grimaced and glared at Cameron.

"She isn't Sam." he growled. Cam shook his head.

"I know."

"You of all people..." the linguist trailed off sullenly as his gaze bored through Cameron. He turned away. Reynolds turned to Teal'c.

"What was the situation at the village, Teal'c?" he asked. The Jaffa turned his gaze from Sam to the Colonel and spoke quickly.

"Majors Evans and Gomez have secured all but the final spire, Colonel Reynolds." he intoned seriously. "I expect them to be ultimately victorious within the next quarter of an hour." Reynolds nodded and turned to Webster.

"Major, remand your men to my command, I will secure the 'gate area." he ordered as Webster nodded to his second who acknowledged and moved towards Reynolds in preparation of receiving further orders. "You will lead Colonel Mitchell and SG-1 in escorting Colonel Carter back to Stargate Command for a full debriefing." Cam nodded and turned to Sam with an encouraging nod while Daniel spared him a last glare before heading for the DHD to dial Earth. Sam touched a hand to Cam's lower back and when he turned to her again he found her looking at him sadly. He shook his head and she sighed and gazed away into the distant sky.

"This is such a beautiful view." she breathed and he turned to follow her gaze. More to hide his reaction than with any desire to see the gas giant hanging in the sky with its obliquely angled rings. "That could be a brown dwarf. A gas giant that couldn't quite muster up enough mass to sustain hydrogen-burning fusion in its core." He nodded, turning to her with a faint smile.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 4**

Stargate Command, January 2006 (alternate reality)

General Landry was trying, he really was. He just couldn't manage to step back and look at her without seeing the Colonel Samantha Carter he'd lost only a couple of months before. Not yet. As she'd walked through the base after coming through the 'gate, the looks she'd received were a mixture of shock, amazement, incredulity and anger, as she had expected. She'd been bustled to a guest room after a medical check-up, just as she had after her arrival at the other alternate SGC. She sighed, this wasn't an alternate now. This was 'her' SGC. She had to remember that.

Landry had come by for a private meeting after the extensive debriefing she and Cameron had undergone earlier. Heimdall had sat in on it with unfeigned curiosity in his limpid black eyes, she still recalled the flush of pleasure she'd gotten over seeing the Asgard. In her old reality the aliens had long since retreated to their own galaxy while their genetic degeneration proceeded unabated. It had taken several hours for them to go over the events since Cam had left P3R-278 the first time, so long in fact, that Dr. Lam had actually managed to arrive with the expedited results of her DNA scan to confirm she was genetically identical to their Samantha Carter. Still, no one was sure what to do. That much was clear after General Landry had left her quarters. He had looked a little lost. She sighed and slumped back against the pillows propped up on the headboard of the bed and almost missed the soft knock on the door. She bid whoever it was to enter and sat up with a smile when Cameron's head popped around her door.

"Is it alright if I come in?" he asked and she nodded eagerly. "I figured you haven't been down to the mess yet so I brought you something." he explained with a faint smile as he walked in holding a bowl of blue jello. She smiled gratefully at him and made to stand up to head to the table only for him to motion for her to sit back down. She took the bowl gratefully and began to dig into the jello while Cam sat down at the edge of her bed. "I know this is... rough, I'm sorry about that." She shook her head. He should have known better. After she'd agreed to come with him and she'd helped the other Carters nail down the equations they needed to properly calibrate the poleron wave generator they borrowed from the Asgard, she and Cameron had spent some time discussing what to expect once she arrived in his reality. This was pretty much what she had told him would happen. Though she hadn't quite expected the level of anger she'd found in Daniel. She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, however. They'd been messed with so often in the past that she really should have expected his resentment.

"It's alright, Cam. I was expecting this, remember?" She took a last spoonful of jello while he nodded sadly. "Is Daniel still...?"

"Oh, he's angry at me. Really angry." Cam replied with a sad smile and she frowned. "He thinks... well maybe you don't want to know what he thinks." She laid her empty bowl aside and reached out to take his hand.

"Yes, I do, Cameron." she said softly as he glanced up at her for a moment before looking away and sighing.

"He said I was dishonouring her memory." he whispered. "To satisfy my own desires which her death had..." he stopped as he blinked rapidly and looked down. She pulled her legs under her and shuffled forward to put her arms around his neck and shoulder. "He's not exactly wrong." Sam bit her lip, deciding there was nothing she could say to that. Nothing safe. He cleared his throat after a minute. "I told him that he could say whatever he liked to me, but that you'd just been through the end of your world and that having been given a second chance you'd chosen to use it on us." He snaked an arm around her waist and she sighed, leaning into him a little more. "I think he gets it. Give him some time, he and Sam had been really close for over eight years, and he didn't take her death well. None of us did." He left unsaid how he'd known Sam the longest out of all of them. She drew her lips into a tight line and turned into him a little, leaning against him and sitting together with him in silence for several minutes.

"And Teal'c?" she asked finally. Cam turned to her with a slight smile.

"The T is nothing if not pragmatic." he replied. "He just said 'this reality is the only one of consequence'. You'll be okay with him pretty soon, I expect." Sam nodded in relief. She had wondered how the burly Jaffa might react. "He's more worried about me and Daniel, I think." Sam nodded, knowing Teal'c was very protective of them all. She sighed, she'd already started thinking of them all as her team. She had to be careful of that. Apart from Cameron they had not accepted her. "General O'Neill is on his way from Washington." Cam said in a warning-filled tone. Sam gulped and nodded. "I expect the final word on what happens will be his." She pulled away and sat on her ankles with her hands on her thighs.

"I should get some rest in preparation for his arrival then." she intoned. Cam smiled and nodded and made to stand only for Sam to reach out a hand to take his. "Cameron, I just need to say thank you for giving me this chance, for having my back through this." He took her hand in both of his and shook his head.

"No matter what reality you could come from, I'd always have your back, Sam." he said softly.

"Even the Sam with the black BDUs who created the funnel?" she asked with a teasing smile.

"Even her. I might not agree with their way of going about things, but I know they're not bad." he replied and she could only nod, remembering how that Carter had not only brought Cameron to her when she needed him, but had also consoled her for long minutes afterwards as well. "Now get some rest. I'll see you when you get called to debrief with General O'Neill." She nodded and he stood up, resting the tips of his fingers on her cheek for a moment before walking towards the door and letting himself out. Sam got up and changed out of her BDUs and into some sweats left for her by the logistics personnel who'd arranged for the quarters, then slipped under the covers to try and get some sleep. She knew that wouldn't be easy.

* * *

Stargate Command, January 2006 (alternate reality)

He'd never seen such murder in the General's eyes. And it was all directed at him. O'Neill had sat in silence while he read over the report. Consequently they'd all sat in silence along with him. It was a _long_ report. Cam had felt every second of that silence in his bones. He'd almost been relieved when the General finally looked up at him as if he wanted to gut him right there in his seat. It made for a change from the alternative.

"Do you have any idea what you've done to a lot of the people on this base, Mitchell?" Jack intoned angrily. "Or how many people here knew Carter and counted her as a friend?" Cam's jaw clenched as his hands closed into fists under the table. "Or how many are still trying to process her death?"

"Jack!" Daniel called with a tone of warning as he glanced towards Cameron. "He's the last person you should ask those things of." he said as he turned a glare on O'Neill. Cam was a little surprised it was the linguist sticking up for him. "He knew her longer than any of us. He sat with her..." He trailed off as Jack frowned and looked over at Cam. "He sat with her at the end." The older man's jaw clenched and the muscles in his neck flexed as he ground his teeth while he listened to Daniel.

"You're right, Daniel." he said slowly, trying to keep his voice under control. "Sorry, Mitchell. I just don't understand why."

"Well, sir, first of all, it helps all of us, including her, I could offer her a second chance and she could give us the same. She had nowhere to go back to, sirs," he intoned, looking between O'Neill and Landry, "_no one_ to return to, she came through that 'gate alone like I did, so we supported each other." He shrugged slightly. "We understood each other's pain." He paused for a long moment and looked down at his hands while everyone in the room sat in silence. "Most importantly, she's Sam. She's not our Sam, but she's still Sam and she deserves to be herself. She deserves a chance to live as herself, not watching someone else live her life, doing her job, alongside her friends. She's Sam... and I don't know about any of you, but I would do anything I have to do for her." He sighed and looked up, only to blink in surprise at seeing her just inside the doorway on the other side of the room, watching him with her blue eyes shimmering.

"You heard the man, Carter." Jack said as she walked around the table to sit between Cameron and Heimdall, who blinked happily at her. "You might not be our Sam Carter, but you'll have to live as her from now on, understand?" Her eyes widened slightly as she looked over at Cam then back at O'Neill who was scrubbing at his greying hair in irritation. "Don't be idiots! Did you honestly think I could pass up this chance? If you're even half the Carter ours was, we need you." He glared right back at Daniel when the archaeologist turned fiery eyes to him. "We need her, Daniel." The linguist closed his eyes and sighed. "Do we know how different your reality was from ours?" Sam glanced Cam's way for a moment and he nodded.

"Cameron and I spent a lot of time talking while in the alternate reality." She cleared her throat slightly as everyone looked at her with a scrutinising gaze. Teal'c's with added equanimity, Landry's with concern, Daniel's and Jack's with just a hint of resentment. "From what we could gather, there are differences, though only minor, up until we lost at Kallana and the Ori established their beachhead." Everyone looked around at each other in disquiet until she spoke again. "After that, nothing's the same."

"What do you mean by minor differences?" Daniel asked in a quiet voice. She turned to him and tried to give him a smile which he didn't return. "This would just be in your relations between you and your Mitchell, right?"

"Well, actually, we didn't... not much..." She paused awkwardly before resuming on a different tack. "You know how Cam's read all our mission files?" she asked and Daniel turned to Cameron for a moment with a little nod. "I think he actually memorised them." she elaborated. "So for instance, do you remember K'Tau? We inadvertently exposed their sun to a quantity of plutonium by transecting it with our wormhole." Daniel nodded. "According to Cameron, you were able to fire a rocket into the star with a payload of maclarium, HU-2340, in order to stabilise the nuclear reactions in the star."

"That is so." intoned Teal'c. Sam nodded at him.

"In my reality," Sam began, "the rocket never got off the ground. We had to send the maclarium through the wormhole manually and time an emergency shut off of the Stargate to seed the star with the super heavy element." Daniel frowned.

"It is highly unlikely that could have been successful, Colonel Carter." said Heimdall from his too-large-for-him chair. Sam nodded.

"We figured there was a good chance the Asgard who had set up K'Tau under the Protected Planets Treaty used our attempt as a cover to catalyse the plutonium out of the sun themselves." she said with a shrug.

"Be that as it may, we have to integrate you into our reality as Samantha Carter." General Landry said gruffly from his seat at the head of the table. "It should be possible, we were deliberately vague in the official notifications about the circumstances of Colonel Carter's passing. It is possible we could use mistaken identity and isolation as an explanation."

"You can save me a lot of paperwork by visiting her... Hell... _your_ family yourself, Carter." Jack glared at Cam again. He sighed as he turned to Sam.

"Remember how I told you I was tired of making the distinction?" he turned back to O'Neill and shrugged. "Like I said, sir. She's Sam."

"Well, whether we like it or not, she's _our_ Sam now." He nodded to her. "Take Mitchell with you when you go see your brother." he grumbled. "Make him work this off." O'Neill and Landry both stood up to leave with Cam and Sam bolting up immediately. Jack looked at her for a moment and shook his head before walking out. Sam slumped down in her chair and glanced across the table at Daniel and Teal'c.

"I don't expect you to just accept me." she said with a sad smile to each of them. "I watched you die, Daniel." she added softly, blinking rapidly. Daniel squirmed in his chair without meeting her gaze "You too, Teal'c." He nodded slightly and she turned to glance at Cameron before turning back to them. "I know how you're feeling, because I'm feeling the same way."

"Fascinating." said Heimdall excitedly with a slow blink of his eyes, while all the members of SG-1 turned to frown at him.

* * *

Samantha Carter's house, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Cameron unlocked the door and opened it to let her inside. He held up the keys for her and she cupped them in her hands as he closed the door behind them. She glanced around and wondered just how much was different from her old house. How much change could the coming of the Ori have wrought for her life that wasn't reflected in this Sam's home. Then again, she remembered not having been home for much except sleeping for several months.

"After the funeral, Mark shoved all her keys into my hands and told me to take care of her things until he could decide what to do with it all." he said with a gentle smile. "I don't think she'd be unhappy with this." She found her eyes welling up as she clutched the keys to her chest and she almost fell right into his arms as he wrapped her up. "Sam, it's okay."

"I'm alright, I just found myself thinking that I would have been okay with it. Had it been the reverse." She let her head fall against his shoulder. "I really would have and it just sounds so strange, so crazy when I say it out loud."

"We live crazy lives, Sam. We experience things that defy our grasp of reality on a bi-weekly basis at least." She chuckled at his joke as his hand traced a lazy circle on her jacket over the small of her back. "Also, well, I hope you don't mind that your P1800 is in my garage right now. It was in her will and..." She smiled against his shoulder. "I've been fixing her up since... you'll get her back good as new." She looked up and nodded with a slight smile.

"Thank you, Cameron. For everything." she whispered and wrapped her arms around his waist. He held her close before pulling back slightly and smiling brightly at her.

"Let's see if there's still some coffee that's salvageable. General O'Neill has started arranging for all her old records and accounts and everything to be re-instated. Until it's all sorted you can stay here if you want, but I think you should pack a bag and stay at my place. I have food that's edible in my fridge and well... money to buy more." She nodded and laughed gently as he led her to the kitchen. The house was cold, she noticed. The heating was on to prevent cold-weather damage, but it was still colder than it would be if someone had been living here. She walked over to the thermostat and turned up the heat. Her first act in her new life as a dead woman returned from the grave, a life filled with familiar strangers. She sat down at one of the high chairs around the breakfast counter as Cam poured a jug of water into her coffee maker and added several spoonfuls of her favourite dry roast to a filter after opening a new vacuum-sealed pack. This could have been her kitchen. As he switched on the machine and it started percolating, he began rummaging through her cabinets and she laughed out loud when he pulled out several cartons and laid them in front of her on the counter sounding entirely too pleased with himself. "We'll take these with us." She nodded eagerly as she picked up one of the boxes of her favoured blue gelatine, only to turn sombre.

"Cameron," she called softly while turning the box over, he came around the counter and stood next to her, "I don't think I can do this without you." He shook his head as she looked up. "I'm sorry I have to put you through this, but I need your help." He sighed and turned the high chair next to hers and pushed it closer before sitting in it and taking her hands in his after she put the box of jello down.

"I'm not going to pretend this is easy for me. It isn't, but I meant everything I said in that briefing room." he declared as she glanced up into his eyes. "I'm tired of making distinctions, and I would do anything for you."

"For Sam." she breathed as she looked down.

"For _you_." he growled. She dared not look back up. "When I say I'm tired of making distinctions it's not because I've just decided to treat you how I treated Sam. It's because I've decided not to let her memory hold me back from treating you how you deserve to be treated." She glanced up at that. "What I mean is, I don't want to think of her as 'my' Sam and of you as 'some other' Sam. She would hate me if I did that. It means I want to think of you as just... Sam. Like she was just... Sam."

"You've only known me for just over a week." she breathed.

"And yet I've also known you for my whole adult life." he reiterated. "I'm not going to make the distinction unless there is a difference. Life is too short." She shook her head.

"I'm not ready for-"

"And you think I am?" he interrupted in a soft voice. She looked at him and he shook his head as he stood up to head back to the now filled coffee maker. "That's not what I'm talking about, Sam." He laid a hand on her cheek and she found herself leaning into it. "No distinction, but that doesn't mean either of us can just forget." She nodded while he walked around the counter and prepared her coffee just as she liked it.

It was finally sinking in that she was now in a reality where she didn't have the might of the Ori bearing down on her. Where in fact, Earth along with her Asgard, Tok'ra and Jaffa allies, were keeping the extra-galactic crusaders penned in to one region of the Milky Way after they'd managed to bring a single large mothership through an untethered wormhole on the edges of Jaffa-controlled space. It was far too powerful a vessel to be engaged by Prometheus, or by any single Asgard ship for that matter, but they had brought in a small fleet of O'Neill class cruisers and the new BC-304s being built, which she'd helped design, were coming with Asgard beam weapons as standard. So she could sit here, in her cold, but slowly warming kitchen, and share a cup of coffee with a man a part of her brain still told her was supposed to be dead, and not feel the urgency she had grown used to.

"When were you thinking of heading to San Diego?" he asked as he once more took the seat next to hers after laying her coffee in front of her. She warmed her hands on either side of her mug and looked into the black liquid for a moment.

"I was hoping to get it over with as quickly as possible." she admitted with a glance in his direction. "And to see Cassie as well on the way back." He nodded.

"Better pack for a road trip instead of just a stay at my place then." he replied and she frowned slightly. "You can't fly commercial, Colonel Dr. Dead Woman." Her eyes widened and then she couldn't stop herself from laughing. This was all too absurd, deranged, crazy, but through it all, Cameron was still Cameron.

"Cam, it's a two day drive to San Diego." she intoned.

"And General O'Neill has pretty much grounded SG-1 until everything is sorted so I figure we have the time." He took a sip of his coffee and gave her _the smile._ She glared at him and he laughed. "Sorry, sorry." She shook her head and looked down. "I know what you're thinking, Sam." she glanced at him and saw the truth of it in his eyes. He knew she was thinking he'd laughed because she'd reacted how he remembered his Sam would react. Then his words filled her mind once more. No distinction without a difference. She nodded and reached over to squeeze his hand. "I was thinking we could stop by Meteor Crater on the way." She looked up with a sparkle in her eyes and he laughed again. "I knew that would excite you."

"You know, you should really call it Barringer Crater..." she intoned as she entered lecture mode to fill him in on every detail of the first confirmed meteorite impact crater identified on Earth.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 5**

43km east of Flagstaff, Arizona, January 2006 (alternate reality)

She'd sustained her lecture mode for most of the two days they'd prepared for the trip and the day they'd driven down from Colorado Springs to Winslow. Before they set off she had made a few emotionally charged telephone calls telling Mark and then Cassie she was alive and would be visiting and her anxiety made itself known as a need to educate him on the finer points of impact crater formation. He'd discussed with her how he'd been dabbling in astronomy for a while, the reasons for which he did not disclose, but which he was fairly sure she could guess at. She didn't mention it, but did talk with him freely about stargazing and telescopes in general. He was happy about that.

They'd made their way to Barringer Crater, as she insisted on calling it, first thing after checking out of their hotel in Winslow and climbing back into his Mustang. He hadn't been quite prepared for his own reaction to what was essentially a huge hole in the ground, but he couldn't deny it either. The vast desolate landscape only reinforced the otherworldliness of the place. Sam had stood in silence beside him on the lower observation deck as they gazed out over the craggy slopes leading to the center of the crater. She'd just smiled at him when he asked what happened to her lecture mode. Now she sat quietly in the passenger seat of his Mustang, as they headed west along the I-40 towards Flagstaff, with her hands nestled in her lap and her head turned to gaze out the window at the vast desert scrubland stretching away to the north until the foothills of the Rockies rose up in the distance. He turned down the volume on the radio, which was playing music from his MP3 player via an FM adapter, and she glanced over at his movement and actions with curiosity.

"Is something wrong, Sam?" he asked only for her to smile and shake her head.

"No. Far from it." she said softly. "This is the first time in a long while that I've felt safe, that I've felt as if I was able to relax knowing tomorrow wasn't going to bring about the end of all I know." She gazed back out the window. "I don't feel as if I deserve it." she breathed. Cam frowned and reached out to brush his fingers against the hair draped over the side of her neck. She turned to look at him again.

"Don't say stuff like that." he ordered seriously. She looked down at her hands for a long moment.

"But why do I get-"

"I don't care, Sam." he said, interrupting her. "I don't care why, or how, or anything like that. We take life one day, one moment, one choice at a time and we deal with it." He looked at her for a second before returning his gaze to the road. "You're here now, you're alive, you move forward one step at a time. Same as me." He was quiet for a while before her silence prompted him to say a little more. "You said you need my help to get through this, well, I need your help. I can't do this without you either. Not anymore." He felt rather than saw her reach out and put her hand on his arm. He let her pull his hand off the wheel and take it in both of hers as she held it in her lap. He glanced over to her and saw her nodding to herself. "Are you with me, Sam?"

"Yes, Cameron. Every step of the way." she breathed in reply and squeezed his hand gently. He nodded and let her knead his fingers in her hands while she looked out the window in silence. The contact between them let him know she was alright.

* * *

Mark Carter's house, San Diego, California, January 2006 (alternate reality)

The following morning she was stepping out of Cameron's Mustang in front of her brother's house in Muirlands. She had to think of him as her brother, that was the only way this would work. She saw him yanking the front door open and rushing down the front path towards them and she steeled herself to spill out a stream of lies to the only family she could claim in two realities.

They'd agreed on a cover story with the Generals. At the height of the outbreak, she'd contracted the illness while off base and in a fever-induced delirium ended up halfway across the state with no ID of any kind, where she'd finally succumbed to the virus and was hospitalised as a Jane Doe due to a case of retrograde amnesia she'd developed as a result of the illness. The person who'd passed away, whom they'd thought was Samantha Carter due to being discovered in the physical proximity of her home, had not yet been identified and due to the cremation of the remains, undertaken as a precautionary measure because of the outbreak, was unlikely to ever be identified. It was an ugly pack of lies, but necessary. The remains of this reality's Samantha Carter would be re-interred somewhere secret, with all due honours and respect. Her friends who retained clearance would of course be informed of the new location. Sam was planning a visit.

"Sam! Oh God, Sam!" Mark cried as he crushed her in his embrace, she found herself clutching at the back of his sweater and turning her head to look at Cameron as he walked around the front of the Mustang. She flicked her gaze to her sister-in-law, Julia, running towards her as well. Her niece and nephew were at school and she wouldn't see them until the afternoon. Cam stood silently off to the side while Sam dealt with her relatives and managed to get them to head back inside for a full accounting of her 'amnesiac sojourn' and how her memories had returned after seeing Cam in some old news footage of the military response to the outbreak. She still claimed shakiness in her recall, something which might help them if she 'misremembered' details in future.

Julia spent quite a while crying disbelieving tears. Mark wavered from happiness at her being well, incredulity at the events, anger at the 'mistake' and hope for the future, one after another and looping back around. Sam tried her best to answer what questions she could with some modicum of honesty, but that was precious little. Cameron tried his best to make himself useful. He'd only really met Mark and his family at Sam's funeral, but as she had spoken of him often over the years they considered him almost as family. He took care to bring them coffee or tea after taking instructions from a grateful Julia, or fetching them food as they talked. Each time he came back in the room Sam found her gaze drawn to him and she smiled sadly when he nodded to her. As lunchtime rolled around, Julia got up to make them something light for them to eat with Cameron's assistance, while Sam was left with Mark in the living room.

"I don't know what to do, Sam." he intoned with his fingers tapping away restlessly on the armrest of his chair.

"What do you mean, Mark?" she asked with a little trepidation.

"For two months we thought you were dead. Two months!" He shook his head and closed his eyes to steady himself.

"So had my friends." she whispered and he looked up at her. "It's no one's fault, Mark." He blinked and his shoulders sagged. She'd been right. "There's nothing to do except move forward. One step at a time." She looked away and flashed a small smile as she looked out the windows. "Cameron gave me back the keys to my house. I hope that's okay with you." She chuckled when she turned to look at his wide-eyed gaze as realisation set in.

"Oh God, I'm going to have to transfer all that back to you-"

"We'll figure it out later, Mark. There's no rush. I mean, Cam and I drove because technically dead people can't be sold airline tickets." She laughed at his look which prompted him to laugh as well. "I'm rebuilding. Slowly, but surely. I only need your support and your love." she said earnestly. Mark nodded and shifted forward in his chair so he could reach over and take her hand where she sat on the settee.

"Of course, Sam. No question."

* * *

Mark Carter's house, San Diego, California, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Julia had him slicing tomatoes for a salad to go with their roast beef sandwiches. She glanced at him as she tore the leaves off a lettuce under the running water of the sink.

"Sam talked a lot about you the last eighteen months or so. You had a big accident summer before last, right?" she asked. He turned to look at her and nodded.

"Flight testing accident with a new aircraft under cold weather conditions. I was stuck on the snow in Antarctica for a couple of hours after the crash." he replied and Julia winced.

"Antarctica? Our summer is the winter there, right?" she grimaced slightly when he nodded.

"Maybe I should have said 'extreme cold weather conditions'." He smiled, trying to tell her things were okay now. She shook her head.

"And now you work with Sam in Colorado Springs?" she asked, rehashing a conversation they'd not really had the time for when they'd met during Sam's funeral.

"That's right. I'm like a bad penny for Sam. She can't get rid of me for long." he joked and Julia smiled.

"You care a lot about her, don't you?" She nodded when he just looked at her. "I remember the way she talked when she first said she was going to take her old job back and that you'd be there. She was giddy." She chuckled at Cam's lifted eyebrow. "Oh, she'd deny it if you asked, but she was." He shook his head. "She's more than a friend as far as you're concerned. I can tell that too. I remember how you looked at the funeral, Cameron." He blinked and looked up from his tomato slicing. "Don't give up alright? This is a second chance for you as well as for her." He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"It's too soon." he whispered. Julia reached across and patted his hand before taking the chopping board and knife away from him and pushing the chopped tomato into a bowl.

"Just don't let it become too late." she warned. "I saw how she looked at you whenever you left the room and came back. You're the only person she really trusts right now." Cam looked at her sadly. "I don't know what's happened to her the last two months, but you brought her back from the brink. That much I can see."

They ate around the kitchen table while conversation was kept to lighter topics. Sam asked for and was granted some time to herself out on the bench on the back porch. It wasn't long before Julia was motioning for Cam to head out there as well. He resisted for a while, but eventually complied, poking his head out the back door and taking her smile as consent he stepped out and sat down next to her.

"He is just like Mark. And she is the Julia I remember." she whispered to him with her head drifting closer to his. "I have to force myself to think of them as mine though." He nodded and took her hand in his, she squeezed his tightly.

"In some ways, amnesia is the perfect cover." he said with a sigh. She glanced at him reprovingly for a moment. "I know, I know, but it fits how you truly feel as much as how you have to pretend to act. You can't disagree, can you?" She shook her head eventually. "Take your time." he added finally.

They would stay for dinner, mostly to reassure her niece and nephew that she wasn't a ghost. They both tackled her as soon as they got home from school and refused to let go until she promised not to die again. Sam wrapped them both in a fierce embrace for several minutes and he wondered when the last time she'd actually visited her brother had been. Probably many months if her descriptions of her reality were anything to go by. After dinner she begged off staying longer, blaming exhaustion from the long road trip. She said her farewells and Cam drove her to the hotel they were staying in. He glanced her way on the drive over as she slumped in the passenger seat, emotionally drained. After getting her up to her room while she leant heavily on him she asked him to come in and stay with her a while. She laid down on the bed after barely getting her shoes and jacket off and he sat beside her with his back against the headboard.

"Thank you for coming with me, I know the General ordered you to do it as some sort of punishment, but... I would have asked you to come if he hadn't." she said slowly, her eyes closed as she clasped her fingers together over her stomach. Cam reached over and laid his fingers over hers. She opened her eyes to glance up at him as he looked down on her.

"I would have offered to come if you hadn't asked." he replied and she smiled softly with a little nod. "Are you nervous about Cassie? Have you decided what you'll tell her?" Sam sighed deeply before answering.

"The truth. She has clearance after all and I'm lying to enough people in my new life already." she replied and he took one of her hands in his and gave it a squeeze, she held on to his hand as well. "I'll let her decide what she wants from me." Her eyes had closed again so he told her that maybe she should try to get some sleep. She protested, but agreed to at least get changed if he promised to stay.

When she came out of the bathroom in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt she propped the pillows up against the headboard and sat down against them, patting the space on the bed next to her which he took. She'd taken a quick shower and her hair was still damp, but he didn't mind when she laid her head on his shoulder after taking a hold of his hand and asking to watch a movie. She remembered him describing the few movie nights they'd had as a team before Sam had passed and wanted to get a feel for it. In hopes of perhaps using them as an opportunity to regain Daniel's and Teal'c's trust.

Cam nodded and settled in to watch a film with her, enjoying the familiarity they'd so quickly developed. She fell asleep about half way through, but he waited until the movie finished before tucking her in despite her mewling protests of being fine to watch another one. He waited until she was fast asleep before heading to his own room to stay up a while longer, dulling his senses with the news on TV while his mind raced with thoughts of her.

* * *

Las Vegas, Nevada, January 2006 (alternate reality)

They spent the next day with Mark's family, Saturday morning was spent at the breakfast table, with Mark and Julia while Cam kept the kids busy in the backyard. She found herself watching him through the window every so often. The afternoon belonged to Lisa and David as Cam agreed to accompany her with them to see a movie. A simple pleasure that meant the world to her. They made their way to the hotel in the evening to prepare for an early start the next day, in truth it was because she was getting nervous about seeing Cassie.

It was like a repeat of the first day in San Diego. After getting an early start following a long phone conversation with her family, they drove to Nevada and Cassie's rented apartment not far from the UNLV campus. Sam didn't get to the front door before the premed biology major ran out and engulfed her in an embrace no less emotional than Mark's had been despite being performed by Cassie's weaker arms. She afforded Cam an embrace as well once she let go of Sam and then dragged them both inside.

"Oh, Sam, what happened? Where have you been this whole time?" Cassie demanded as Sam looked at Cameron anxiously.

"Cassie, what Sam is about to tell you is going to be shocking. You should sit down. I'll get us some tea." Cam told her, motioning towards the student's couch.

"What are you talking about, Cam?" she asked, turning to look between him and Sam. She directed Cassie to sit down and debated for a moment whether to sit next to her on the couch before deciding against it. She would rather Cassie not feel the need to pull away from her. She pulled up a chair from Cassie's desk and glanced towards the small kitchen where Cam had set some water to boil in the kettle and was coming back to make his presence felt in the living room should the young woman need it. Sitting down across from Cassie she sighed and began with a confession.

"Cassie, I'm not the Sam Carter you know." she admitted. Cassie blinked at her in confusion for several moments before glancing at Cameron questioningly. "I'm from an alternate reality, very similar to this one up until the arrival of the Ori in the Milky Way four months ago."

"So wait, you're not Sam?" Cassie asked in a slightly strangled tone. At least the young woman's first question hadn't been in regards to their sanity.

"I'm _a_ Sam, just not _your_ Sam." she said gently. Cassie was silent for several moments as she blinked and looked down at the ground.

"So Sam is still dead?" she asked in a low voice. Sam nodded. "Do you expect me to-"

"I don't expect anything, Cassie. I don't even expect you to give me a chance. Just say the word and I'll leave right now." Sam said in a broken voice as she let her head drop when her eyes began to sting. She felt Cameron approaching from behind her and putting a hand on her shoulder for a moment. She looked up gratefully and he moved away to get the tea now that the kettle had boiled. She turned to look at Cassie, who had slumped back on the couch and was regarding her with turbulent eyes. The young woman almost flinched when Cam laid a mug of tea on the small side table next to her. She looked up at him with a question in her eyes.

"It's up to you, Cassie, if you want time, you'll have it, if you want space, we'll go, if you want to punch something then you can use me. I brought her to this reality. And it's all my fault anyway." he said sadly while Sam whipped her head up to stare at him in alarm. Was he talking about more than just her own arrival? "My advice is to at least hear her out before you decide anything." Cassie looked back at Sam for several seconds before nodding slowly.

She listened quietly while Sam told her everything. Describing her own relationship with her own reality's Cassie to show her the similarities, as well as having a few differences pointed out to her. Describing the more recent history of her life as their realities diverged considerably after the Battle of Kallana. Finally answering Cassie's question about the fate of her Cassandra.

"She's gone." Sam explained. "Most metropolitan areas were bombarded from orbit not long after the Ori ships came. Cassie had been evacuated to Area 51 as soon as we saw them coming, but they destroyed it too." Cassie looked down as the tears started rolling down her cheeks. "I'm not looking to replace your Sam, and I don't want you to feel you have to replace my Cassie." she whispered, echoing the words Cameron had said to her in the alternate reality. "I promise though, if you ever need me, if you call for me, I will come." Cassie stood up, running a hand through her long hair as she looked between Sam and Cameron. Sam stood up more slowly while Cam still leant against the doorway leading to the kitchen. The student looked at Sam for several seconds before turning away and wringing her hands.

"Will you come with me to see Mom in a few...?" she asked in a strained whisper, referring to the anniversary of Dr. Janet Fraiser's death and their usual visit to her grave. Sam's heart leapt into her mouth as she began nodding immediately. Cassie turned to see that and rushed over to hug Sam again. She held the young woman tightly as they both began to cry and Cam came over to run his fingers over her hair and across her cheek. She reached out her hand and it fell against his shoulder to clutch at the fabric of his shirt. He laid his hand over the top of hers and she grasped at it, holding it tightly.

After taking Cassie out for a late lunch and spending another two hours talking, they said their farewells and departed in hopes of making it to Cedar City by nightfall. Sam sat quietly beside Cameron in his Mustang, listening to the music from his MP3 player or to him talking about nothing in particular. She smiled softly whenever he spoke, the sound of his voice soothed her, washing away the nervous anxiety she'd been feeling for a long time now. She watched him carefully as he drove and listened to his tunes. He wasn't the Cameron she knew, even taking into account the different reality and the arrival of the Ori. He was touched by a deep sadness. The reason was obvious of course. Another thing the visit to the alternate reality had taught her was that for most of the Carters and Mitchells, their feelings for each other were decidedly mutual. It brought her a little pain to think of the time she'd wasted with her own Cameron, now she knew he'd probably returned her feelings already.

So she looked at Cam and knew for a fact that he had loved his Sam. Loved her and lost her. Not as she had lost her Cameron, in a flash in the night sky, only to find him again, or at least someone as close to him as wasn't worth worrying about, almost immediately, before she'd even had a chance to process it. He had watched his Sam die, slowly and in pain. He'd held her hand in her final moments and done his all to comfort her and ease her passing, only to be left behind with the knowledge of his wasted chance and time enough for his own thoughts to consume him.

"She knew." she whispered. Cam turned to look at her with a confused look. "In the end, I'm sure she knew you loved her, Cameron. I'm sure she knew." she said as her lower lip trembled and her eyes welled up. Cam gulped hard and blinked back the tears suddenly stinging at his eyes and was forced to pull over to the side of the road. He leaned forward against the steering wheel as his shoulders shuddered while he cried silently and Sam unbuckled her seatbelt to lean across to pull him towards her. "And if she was anything like me, she loved you too."


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 6**

Frisco, Colorado, January 2006 (alternate reality)

As the sky began to darken with the Sun falling away behind them past the trees on the western slopes of the Rockies, they turned off I-70 onto Colorado Route 9 through the town of Frisco. They decided to stop at an eatery somewhere in the town with a view of Lake Dillon before it got completely dark. Cam was still intending to drive through the rest of the way home that night.

He led Sam in and over to a table as she spoke on the phone with Major Paul Davis, who was tasked with basically bringing the identity of Samantha Carter back from the dead. They'd been speaking for a few hours already, but it wasn't all business, they had compared differences of their shared history as the children of Air Force bigwigs assigned to the Pentagon and living near each other in Virginia. There were a few marked albeit negligible variances.

"So essentially I'll have a sprained wrist from all the pieces of paper I'll have to sign when I get back to base on Monday, is that right?" she asked into the phone as Cam pulled out her seat for her and she sat down, nodding to herself. "Alright. I understand. Thanks, Paul, for everything." Cam moved to sit opposite her as she listened to Davis for several moments. "I got it. I have to go, Cameron and I are about to get some food here. Right... Yeah, bye, Paul." She glanced up at Cam as he waved his hand over the table and indicated she say bye for him also. She smiled. "Cam says bye too. Okay." She closed the phone and sighed, looking at him apologetically. He waved it off. Honestly, he was surprised it was going as smoothly as it seemed to be.

"It's alright, Sam." he murmured in spite of her head shake. They ordered some drinks, Cam taking a single glass of something from the micro-brewery the restaurant was built around, while Sam went for something a little lighter from their selection. "Resurrection is a tricky business." She chuckled as he smiled for her. Since he'd had to stop on the side of the road the day before he'd felt a lot more clear-headed and light-hearted. She'd somehow found the one thing he had needed to hear. "Are you still sure you want to do the movie night thing tomorrow?" She nodded.

"Yes, I felt so at ease watching that movie with you the other night." she explained. "If you guys shared those sorts of moments with Sam then I think that if I can show them I don't intend to supplant her memory, that _we_ can still do the same things as _you_ did, without it becoming me competing with her, then we can take a step in the right direction." He nodded.

"We don't usually have them on the weekend, but I think I can wrangle them to my place." He smiled at her and held his hand out, palm up, across the table. She looked at it for a moment before reaching forward and placing her fingers over his and holding on lightly with her thumb. "Honestly, I think Teal'c just wants to know you will still act like Sam. Jackson... well... I think Daniel is lost in his own head about this." She tilted her head. "Sam, he's died twice and come back." Her eyes widened as realisation dawned on her.

"Holy Hannah." she breathed as she looked up at Cam after a moment reflecting on their intertwined fingers on the table. "That's a distinction _without_ a difference." Cam nodded.

They talked for a while after they ordered food and ate when it came, discussing what movie to watch the next day, and about her stay at his place over the following weeks, at least until all her accounts were sorted. Sam begged him to let her drive his Mustang down the mountain, but he merely said that if she weren't a dead woman he'd have let her. She glared at him and he laughed, able to tell she was starting to get very tired with that rationale. Once they were outside the restaurant, Sam put her hand on his arm as he opened her door and turned him around to face her. He was surprised when she moved forward and kissed him softly on the lips, her hand moving up his arm as she leaned against him. She didn't say anything after she pulled back, just brushed his cheek with her fingertips and smiled gently before sliding into the passenger's seat. He blinked and closed the door, then walked around the back of the car to get in the driver's side.

"Sam..." He stopped when she reached over and put her fingers on his lips and shook her head.

"I just wanted you to know, there's no distinction for me, between her feelings and mine." she said softly. Cam watched her then glanced down at her lips as they showed him a faint smile under her dusky rose cheeks. He felt his heart clenching painfully, but in a good way, a way that reminded him he was alive. He nodded to her and turned the engine over to carry on driving south towards Breckenridge and the other towns on CO-9 until Hartsel and their turn onto US Route 24 that would take them through Pike National Forest and on to Colorado Springs.

* * *

Cameron Mitchell's house, Colorado Springs, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Sam sat on his couch with her knees drawn up against her chest, her oversized 'Property of the Air Force' t-shirt slipped over her legs and her arms circled and clasped around her shins. She would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous about this. During the last week while on the road with Cameron, she'd come to realise her feelings for him weren't simply a transference of her unexpressed longing for the Cameron Mitchell from her old reality. They included the deep bond she could feel she shared with this Cameron, forged through their similar circumstances as they were thrown together in that ersatz SGC and over the long hours spent in each other's company as they travelled through the American southwest in his Mustang. In fact, knowing her feelings as they were, and that his own feelings for her were likely growing in a similar way, was the only thing keeping her from freaking out over the expected arrival of their teammates for the impromptu movie night Cam had arranged at her behest.

He stuck his head in the doorway from the dining room and asked if she wanted something to drink after laughing at the sight of her. She glared at him without bothering to straighten out or otherwise change how she was positioned and simply asked him for some orange juice. He nodded, still chuckling, and ducked away again. Before he could return with their drinks and an assortment of snacks, Sam jumped at the sound of the doorbell. He bid her answer it and she grumbled, but acquiesced and slipped her legs out from under her t-shirt. She smoothed out the fabric of her sweatpants and padded to the front hall in her woolly socks. She opened the door to see Daniel and Teal'c bearing an armful of food and drink each and swept a hand across her to motion them in. She glanced at them apprehensively and Daniel's features especially betrayed a certain trepidation and wariness. Teal'c surprised her though, pleasantly as it turned out.

"Good evening, Colonel Carter. I look forward to this evening's selection of 'Kingdom of Heaven'." he said with a smile and a gentle hand on her shoulder. She smiled broadly and nodded to him.

"Well, Cam refused to watch a film about _Navy_ pilots in futuristic planes and I refused to watch anything with an alien invasion even if it was directed by Spielberg." she replied with a final tilt of her head from side to side as she closed the front door behind them.

"Ergo, we get a historically inaccurate depiction of the siege of Jerusalem." finished Daniel with a smirk.

"Exactly." Sam offered him with a smile. He nodded to the Jaffa who moved towards the kitchen to greet Cameron and then returned his gaze to Sam, looking up and down at the casualness of her dress.

"I'd like to say you look like you're making yourself at home, but I want to be careful not to be misconstrued." he intoned more softly than she was expecting. She looked down with a slight blush, only now noticing what sort of impression it made. "I _would_ have said it to..." he paused and looked away and she reached out to him, only hesitating for a moment before closing her fingers around his forearm.

"I'm not expecting-" she stopped when he shook his head and put his hand over hers.

"I've had a week to cool down. I'm not angry at you. I'm really only _slightly_ upset with Cameron. It's _me_." he explained before letting his head hang down for a moment. "Believe me, I know how hypocritical this is of me. I didn't need Teal'c reminding me of my own history of resurrection, though he _did_ remind me, quite forcefully as well let me tell you, there was some ass-kicking involved." He looked at her for a moment. "I'm trying." She nodded and couldn't help but embrace him. He stiffened slightly before patting her back a few times.

"Sorry, Daniel, about everything." she whispered and he shook his head. "Also, I'm going to go hug Teal'c now for kicking your ass." She pulled away and dashed off towards the kitchen as he broke out into laughter. Teal'c turned at the sound and was slightly taken aback when he found Sam embracing him. Cameron laughed when the reason for it was explained.

Jackets were doffed, drinks were dispensed, Sam finally got her orange juice, intending to move on to beer later in the evening, and they moved to the living room with plenty of snacks and the talk flowing free. She described her and Cameron's roadtrip and her visits with her brother and Cassie. She skimped on details she wasn't yet prepared to share with the other two men, and they went over interesting happenings on base from the week. Eventually they settled in to watch the DVD and Sam found herself sitting next to Cameron on the couch, a place hers by dint of the other seats being taken. She realised that this is how things had been during their previous movie nights. She didn't mind at all, making sure she stretched out her legs on the coffee table in front of the couch in much the same manner that Cam did.

"We're missing someone." Daniel said curiously much to Sam's confusion, until a white shimmer began next to Teal'c's recliner and an Asgard control seat appeared out of nowhere to her wide-eyed surprise. "Oh, there you are, Heimdall."

"Greetings, all," began the Asgard jovially, "I have been greatly anticipating tonight's entertainment. I am not tardy, am I?"

"Right on time as always, buddy." Cameron replied with a smile and a little elbow jab for Sam which caused her to close her slightly gaping mouth and scowl at him.

The evening passed on into the wee hours, as Daniel's exhortations on the history of the Crusades in general and Saladin and the recapture of Jerusalem in particular did not respect the closing credits and carried on long after it was clear they were all just goading him into the discussion. Sam found herself laughing quite often during them as Cameron showed himself to not be as unprepared for the battle of wits as Daniel had expected. It was military history of a sort after all. Teal'c and Heimdall seemed enthused just watching them go at it.

After a while she found herself in the kitchen, doing the dishes with Teal'c and Heimdall while Daniel and Cameron were having a talk outside in the back garden. A quick look shared between her and the Jaffa showed they were both of the same mind about whatever the two men were discussing. A necessary clearing of the air. Teal'c, for his own part, showed no reticence in interacting with her as she remembered her own version of the Jaffa would. Cam had been right to call him pragmatic. He could not only see the benefit brought to their efforts against the Ori by her being there, but also the improvement it made to their own lives personally. He made no bones about telling her as much either.

"I am glad, Colonel Carter, that you have chosen to join us in our reality." he murmured while taking a plate which the Asgard had taken great amusement in drying with a wave of a hand held device after Sam passed it to him. Teal'c returned the flatware to its home in a high cabinet, well beyond the grey alien's reach.

"I agree most emphatically. I understand it must be very difficult for all of you, coming to terms with these events, but I believe it will in time be viewed favourably by all concerned." Heimdall said in his somewhat lilting, overly rapid manner. "A renewed hope comes to this reality from the ashes of another." He blinked as he reached for the plate Sam was holding out to him. "Though technically of course your reality still exists, you are now merely absent from it in any meaningful sense."

"I take your meaning, Heimdall." she replied softly. "I'm just glad of the chance to make a difference." The Asgard nodded with a little burbling sound of assent as he quickly dried the dish and passed it on to Teal'c.

"Indeed. I believe the situation could only be improved by the reappearance of Vala Mal Doran." he intoned, again depositing the dry plate on a shelf.

"Vala Mal Doran? You mean she's not dead?" asked Sam as she handed the Asgard a tall glass to dry.

"Her fate and whereabouts are currently unknown, Colonel Carter." the Jaffa explained. "We ascertained she managed to activate the transport rings aboard the Tel'tak she used to disrupt the formation of the Ori Supergate above Kallana. We surmise the matter stream may have been pulled through the singularity into the Ori home galaxy." She pursed her lips and frowned in confusion.

"Wait a minute. _She_ disrupted the formation of the Supergate?" Sam asked only for Teal'c to nod as he put away the dry glass handed to him by Heimdall. "Seriously?" She looked away a moment. "She was killed by a Jaffa aboard the cargo ship in my reality." She turned to the sink, scowling in anger, and clutched at the edge of the counter with both hands to keep them from visibly shaking. "How did she do it?" she asked in a whisper without turning around.

"I understand she interposed her Goa'uld cargo vessel in between two of the segment ships forming the Supergate." Heimdall explained. "When Kallana imploded to form a miniature black hole, the presence of her ship disrupted the power initialisation sequence of the Supergate and it was swept away in the resultant blast wave from the micro-singularity." Teal'c moved forward and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder as she forced back her tears. She never thought she'd find out so soon what the crucial difference in their realities would be.

"I hope I get to thank her one day." she breathed, while wrestling to control her emotions.

"Indeed, and Daniel Jackson will also benefit greatly from such a return." Teal'c added with a small smile and a raised eyebrow. She gave him a curious look in return.

* * *

Cameron Mitchell's house, Colorado Springs, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Cam sat huddled in his jacket on one of the wooden steps off his back porch after diligently clearing it of most of the snow. Daniel stood a little ways away further into the garden and looked off into the cloudless night sky. He shrugged his shoulders in the cold and shuffled his feet in the snow for several moments before he turned around to speak.

"I shouldn't have said what I did about you dishonouring Sam's memory." he whispered. "I'm sorry about that." Cam shook his head.

"You weren't entirely wrong, Jackson." he confessed, but Daniel just waved it away.

"No act is ever purely altruistic. I know that, but I scorned your conscience and your morality, which I _know_ played a huge part in whatever decision you made." He ran a hand over his hair as he shrugged again. "That was wrong of me. I forgot just how much Sam meant to you, how much she _still_ means to you." Cam looked up at him.

"Vala told you, didn't she?" he asked and Daniel nodded in reply. "I'm not forgetting her, Daniel, and I'm not forgetting she died." He blinked rapidly and clenched his jaw. "I'll never forget that."

"I know, Cameron-" the linguist began only for Cam to carry on.

"But when I went to that alternate reality I learned something amazing. Sam was still alive." he said simply as a huge grin spread over his lips. "Out there in the multiverse, Sam was still alive and kicking ass and taking names and maybe even chewing bubblegum if she had any to hand." Daniel's shoulders slumped slightly as he smiled softly at his friend and the picture he was painting. "Sam Carter in all her wondrous variations lived and breathed and loved and laughed and fought with all her heart and soul." He began laughing as he hugged himself in the cold and Daniel smirked. "When I saw that, when I realised that, the loneliness went away, you know?" Daniel nodded. "I still felt the pain, in my heart, but that was regret. My own personal demons." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Even if I hadn't brought her back with me, I would still feel freer now than I have since she died."

"But you did bring her back." Daniel said softly.

"And I will never regret it. Ever." he said fiercely. His friend nodded in a conciliatory fashion.

"You love her, don't you?" Daniel asked.

"I love Sam, I've always loved Sam." he replied.

"But you love _her_, don't you?" Daniel asked with a fierce emphasis and a pointed finger back towards the house. Cameron sat in silence for a long moment before turning around to look back inside. He faced the linguist once more.

"She's Sam." he said finally with a shrug of his shoulders. "Yes, I love her. Specifically her." Daniel scrubbed at his hair with a hand again as he stomped his feet and walked back towards the porch to sit by his friend.

"Sheesh. I'm glad I didn't take that bet with Vala now." he muttered and Cam looked at him askance. "She looks at you. When you come and go, she watches you. Sam used to look at you that way sometimes, though she hid it better." He chuckled then looked over at Cameron as he grew serious. "Don't mess things up, alright?" Cam shook his head. Daniel took that as enough and stood up to head back inside. Cam followed soon after and trudged into the kitchen once he'd shrugged off his jacket. He found Daniel already talking with Sam while she, Heimdall and Teal'c were finishing the dishes. Something about communication stones and long range subspace links. Cam shook his head.

Farewells were said and Sam even managed to get Heimdall to excitedly accept a hug from her before he offered to give Daniel and Teal'c a quick transport home via his ship in orbit. They accepted after Daniel arranged to come back early the next morning to collect his Willys. His guests soon vanished after clustering around Heimdall's control chair, leaving Sam standing next to him with her hand up from waving at them. She flopped unceremoniously on the couch and patted the seat next to her which he took.

"That went well, I think." she offered and he nodded happily. "I had no idea Heimdall came by on the movie nights too!" she cried finally and he chuckled.

"Yeah, well, he's kind of an honorary member of SG-1." He sighed sadly.

"Especially since she died, right?" Sam asked gently and he nodded. She let out a little breath, but he didn't let her pull away, just taking hold of her hand and looping his arm around behind her. She looked up at him and just smiled, settling her head on his shoulder. She was quiet for several moments until she lifted a hand to point over at his stack of new DVDs. "Tell me about that one called 'Serenity' again." He smiled.

"You can't watch that until you watch all the episodes of the TV series." he murmured and made to get up. She didn't protest so he took that as assent and quickly set things up before returning. He smiled to himself when she leaned against him and lifted his arm over her head to where it had been before he got up.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 7**

Stargate Command, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Sam stepped into the Astrophysics Lab on sublevel 19. Very few people actually knew that was its official designation, they just knew it as Sam Carter's lab. It wasn't as she remembered it of course, her research had gone in a completely different direction as that of this reality's Sam after their defeat at Kallana. And of course there hadn't been a Sam Carter working in here for over two months. It had seen _some_ use, Kvasir had set up something in the corner which she was very curious about, but it had otherwise lain fallow so to speak.

"Where should I put this, Colonel?" asked Master Sergeant Siler in reference to the black case he was lugging around, Sam smiled at him. Siler was like a rock, he'd just completely shaken off the fact Sam Carter was supposed to be dead and treated her exactly as he had in her own reality. She was very grateful to him, quite a few of the other personnel on base had not yet accepted her as fully, if at all.

"On that shelf over there for right now, Sly. I still need to see the data Dr. Lee got from Daniel's connection with the stones." She pointed at a low shelf which was not quite covered in doohickeys and he happily shuffled over to deposit the case on top of it before turning around and lifting his eyebrows enquiringly. She shook her head with a smile and he nodded and left after she threw him a quick 'thank you' and he responded with a friendly albeit automatic 'yes, ma'am'. Speaking of Bill Lee, he popped up in her doorway forthwith with the aforementioned data on an external backup drive.

"Right, um, hi, Sam. I did exist in your old reality, right?" he asked and she nodded with a slight grin. "Okay, well, here's the data Dr. Jackson told me to get for-" he stopped and just looked at her. She canted her head to the side. "Oh, sorry! I'm just, you know, blown away..." he chuckled while making emphatic hand motions, "you're a Sam Carter from another reality. Just... wow!" She smiled at him and reached for the storage drive he was holding out. "Ah, yeah," he continued with a hand at his hip as the fingers of the other scratched at his top lip then moved to point at the backup drive, "here's all the telemetry we got from Dr. Jackson's stone while he was connected to the device. As you can see, there's a lot."

"Is my laptop still somewhere around here, Bill?" she asked looking around while hoping that if she just started speaking like she belonged there it would help everyone else get past the awkwardness. Dr. Lee blinked and thought about it for a few moments before looking around himself.

"Looking for this?" came a voice from her door and she beamed as Cam held up a very familiar looking computer at head height as if it were a serving tray. He nodded to Dr. Lee as he walked in. "Hey, Doc."

"Hey, Colonel. Right, well, I think you'll be able to get started with whatever it is you and Dr. Jackson have cooking. Come see me if you need anything more, Sam." Bill offered as he made for the door.

"Thanks, Bill." she called to him while taking the laptop Cameron held out for her. She looked at him enquiringly.

"Sam gave me the password to it," he explained, "told me there were some letters in the personal folder she wanted me to make sure would eventually arrive at their destination." She blanched, knowing exactly what she had in her own personal folder in her own reality. "I hadn't yet read the letter with my name on it before..." he trailed off in his admission to her surprise, and if she was honest with herself, a modicum of relief. "I was still working up the courage." he whispered. Sam put the computer down on her desk and stepped over to wrap him in her arms. He held her close. She sighed as she leaned into him, coming to a decision.

"I think I know what's in it, Cameron. And I think you _should_ read it." she said as she pulled back a bit to look into his eyes. He watched her for a moment and just nodded.

"Maybe another time." he said softly. She laid her hand on the closed lid of the computer.

"I want to say that from now on I'm going to have the courage to tell you the things I used to only write down in that file. I'm going to try." She tried to smile, but from his reaction it must have seemed a little like the pained grimace she felt from her heart clenching in her chest because he just pulled her into his arms as she screwed her eyes shut and clutched at the back of his BDUs.

* * *

Colorado Springs, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Cam smiled as he pushed open the navy blue painted door in the sky blue painted frontage of Bering & Sons Bookstore and the brass bell above his head jangled merrily in a way designed to evoke every nostalgic memory of visiting Charleston's many book stores with his grandmother. It was such a change from the dissonant electronic tones emitted by the sensors stationed above the doors of more modern stores. Admittedly his own taste in books would not be as well catered for in a small Mom and Pop establishment such as this one, but what it lacked in sci-fi and space opera pulp it more than made up for in the vintage titles. He just paused in the doorway for a moment and took a deep breath of that slightly musty aroma of old paper and ink. He was sure he could find something here.

"Afternoon, come on in and have a look around." came the greeting from a smiling older lady with short blond hair and round-rimmed glasses. "If you need help just ask." He smiled and nodded and she carried on tallying off books on a list, but looked up when he walked over to her.

"I actually placed an order with you, and you called me this morning." he explained and her eyes lit up.

"Oh, right! Mr. Mitchell, right?" she asked and he nodded. She walked out of the aisle she was standing in and looked off towards the back of the store. "Warren? Where did you put that book order that came in last night?"

"What was that, Jeannie?" asked a tall man as he appeared in the doorway of the back room and passed a hand over his balding pate. He walked forward and gave Cam a little scrutinising look as he smiled in a deceptively gruff manner. "Book order?" He walked behind the small counter and rummaged around underneath before coming back up with thin hardcover book, adorned in white on black with the schematics of several interlocking gears. "Don't usually go outside of the literary, if you know what I mean. Still, I know some people who are into the more technical side of things. This sounds interesting though, I have to admit. A clockwork computer from Ancient Greece?" He looked up at Cam and raised his eyebrows. Cam chuckled and nodded as he followed behind the woman who glanced down at the book herself.

"Yeah, designed to track the movements of the stars and planets. My best friend is an astrophysicist and I missed her birthday a few weeks ago for various reasons." He looked down at his hands for a moment as he tried to regain his composure slightly. "She'll get a kick out of this. Knowing her she'll end up building her own for fun." he finished with a small smile as he looked up.

"In my day you wooed a lady with poetry, not science journals." muttered the shop's proprietor as Cam grinned. His wife looked at him with a little bit of shock and chagrin. "What? It's so obvious just by looking at him." She glared at him then turned to Cam.

"He never wooed me with poetry, I'll tell you that for a fact." she stated which elicited a laugh from Cameron.

"How about I split the difference?" Cam replied with a smile. "For her mind, some Antikythera," he pointed down at the book he'd ordered, "and for her heart..." he paused in thought only for the older woman to give a little jump and point his way before dashing off into the shelves.

"Just you wait," Warren said with a smile as he watched his wife, "She'll bring back 'Bright Star' by Keats." Jeannie indeed returned with a small leather-bound volume by John Keats, and opened it to the very sonnet mentioned by the owner who just looked at him smugly. Cam read the words on the page and smiled softly at the imagery of the constant and watchful star and the poet's expressed desire of being as steadfast. He nodded slowly.

"Yeah, this is... just right." he breathed as he looked up and met the older couple's approving gaze. He cleared his throat and looked around the store for a moment. "Ah, I was also thinking of buying her a blank journal, something she can write in." He glanced at them and smiled. The idea came to him when he saw the young Dr. Carter writing away in a small journal she would slip out of the inside pocket of her BDU jacket. "She spends all her time on a computer, I think something more..."

"Tactile." Warren offered to Cam's nod.

"Exactly. I think she'd like that." He looked around again. "I don't suppose you carry anything like that." Jeannie smiled and moved off once more.

"We don't just cater to readers, son, we like to encourage writers too." Warren replied, though his voice was tinged with sadness. Jeannie returned with a small package which included a journal bound in leather, a bottle of ink and a hefty looking fountain pen with a marbled veneer finish and a silver point. Cam nodded happily.

"I'll take it."

He arrived home later that afternoon with the books and writing set all nicely wrapped and snugly nestled in a decorative cloth bag he got from the book store. He smiled when his ears picked up the clatter of keys from his living room and he walked down the short hall and under his staircase to catch sight of Sam, sitting cross-legged on his couch with her laptop in her lap. He couldn't help another smile as he just leant against the wall and watched her look of concentration and focus. He waited until her fingers stopped and lifted to run across the screen before softly clearing his throat to get her attention.

"Cam, hey, I didn't hear you get in." she said with a smile as she lifted the laptop on to the coffee table and uncurled herself to stand up. It was almost hypnotic how she moved. There was strength in the motion, but also precision. Resolution, but also finesse. She walked over to him and glanced at the bag when he lifted it up and held it out for her.

"Happy birthday." he said softly. She looked up to his eyes again and blinked rapidly as she took the bag from his hands and looked inside.

"Cam you shouldn't have." she murmured as she took his hand and walked him over to the couch and sat him down beside her as she began unwrapping. She reacted just as he'd expected at the sight of the book on the Antikythera Mechanism. Grinning broadly, she paged through the book quickly as she told him what she already knew of the ancient clockwork device. She reached over and gave his hand a squeeze as she secured his help in machining parts to specification. He laughed and nodded at her enthusiasm.

She smiled when she slid the paper away from the cover of the book of poetry. Her eyes glittered as she opened the book and read the dedication he'd written for her: '_To sate your heart and soul with the fruits of beauty as truth, from the bright star to the stargazer._' Sometimes the ambiguities of the English language were a welcome impediment. She clutched the vintage book to her chest and pulled him closer to lay a gentle kiss against his cheek.

When she unwrapped the writing set he saw a look of trepidation come over her eyes, which slowly gave way to determination. He nodded as he realised she was remembering what they'd talked about the previous week, about how she would began telling him the things she would usually have written in her laptop. He knew she saw the journal for what it was, a compromise. Her fingers moved slowly over the pen and she lifted it out and held it in her hand before opening the journal to the first page and placed the nib against the paper after filling the pen from the ink bottle that nestled in the soft velvet lining of the set.

_January the 17th,_

_I was surprised today when Cameron gifted me this journal as a birthday present. It wasn't my only gift, but I think it is the one which most exemplifies how well he has come to know my heart._

She looked up from the page as she capped the pen and watched him reading the short lines. He blinked several times and glanced at her eyes and only smiled when she kissed his lips softly.

* * *

P6R-035, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Just a simple recon mission to get her back into the groove. Just a quick stroll through a lush forest so she and her new slash old teammates could get back into the swing of things. Those were General Landry's exact words. Swing. Of. Things.

"Hurry up, Sam." Daniel called to her from the other end of the ravine as he waved for her to cross the rope bridge which precariously spanned the chasm. Sam glanced at Cam and he nodded from his crouched stance covering the stone pillars behind her which held the cords under tension to similar stonework on the opposite bank.

"I've got your six, Sam. Get going." He motioned behind them both with his head and she slid the P90 back around her torso on its strap before bounding across the knotted rope with her hands hovering lightly over the two similar cords which were laced to the first with thinner vines. She didn't suffer from vertigo, but a single glance down at the rushing water far below was the only one she'd need to take. No sense in tempting fate. That was in fact a rule she tried to live by. The ropes creaked and groaned as all such things did, the cultural associations implicit in such sounds might have made others anxious, inured as they were by the thousands of movies which depicted such structures tearing and collapsing as soon as someone sets foot beyond the halfway point, but she was a trained professional. She had to grip the support ropes and pull herself up the slope of the last ten feet and gratefully accepted Teal'c's proffered hand to make the last meter before lifting her P90 to a ready stance again as she called for Cam to come across. She frowned when she spotted the silhouettes in the tree line opposite.

"Hurry, Cam! They're right behind you." she cried. A grunt was Cam's only reply. She cursed when the short, feather-ended shafts of several arrows flew in his general direction and she raised her gun to sight into the trees, opening fire along with Daniel and Teal'c to try to discourage any further missile fire.

In some ways it was successful. The archers did stop firing at Cam, they just started targeting the three of them instead. Her eyes widened slightly when she spotted the hail of arrows coming their way only to notice that Daniel was totally exposed out along the edge of the ravine. She dashed out quickly and grabbed a fistful of his forest camo BDUs.

"Get in cover, Cam, Teal'c!" she cried as she pulled Daniel past her towards the stone pillar she had been standing behind. She was too late though. Daniel was in cover, but she was not. She cried out in pain as the barbed tip of an arrow slashed through the top of her thigh, sending a spray of blood to fall on the leaf strewn path behind her. She stumbled to the ground as more arrows fell down around her, embedding themselves in tree trunks and skittering off the rocky path. She gasped as her hand clamped down automatically on the wound, causing it to flare intensely.

"Sam!" She heard Cam crying out in alarm. Her only response was another cry of pain. She felt the collar of her jacket go tight as she was pulled back behind the stone pillar by Daniel, but motioned him to lay down covering fire when he bent down over her with a wild look in his eyes. She pressed down on her thigh herself in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood. It took several long moments for Cam to make it to the end of the rope bridge and at least twice he had to crouch down precariously on the span to avoid being stuck by arrows. Sam leaned back against the pillar, her jaw clenched tight and her face pale from the pain. Cam crouched down next to her and she could only blink silently at him as he quickly took in the blood-soaked leg of her BDUs. "We gotta run for the 'gate, Sam. This is gonna hurt." She groaned, but nodded as Cam reached into a pocket on her tac vest and pulled out a morphine injector and quickly stabbed her neck with it before he grabbed on to Daniel's jacket and motioned for him to move to Sam's other side. "T-man, you cover us." he ordered while snaking an arm around her back, still allowing her to keep her hand clamped over her thigh. She had her other arm over Daniel's shoulder as they lifted her off the ground to another shuddering cry of agony through clenched teeth.

It was the longest two hundred meters of her life. Teal'c's fusillade of covering fire notwithstanding, the only thing she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears as fire crept up her leg with every jarring step they took. She was close to passing out by the time her blurred vision could make out the ring of the Stargate from behind the cover of the trees, Teal'c rushed past them, dialling home with rapid-fire slaps of the symbol panels before taking up a defensive position behind them again, focused solely on the possibility of pursuit. Cameron's muffled voice as he spoke into the radio couldn't cut through the buzzing and ringing in her ears as her head lolled to the side against his shoulder. Several more pain-filled steps found her being set down on her back on the cold metal ramp in the 'gate room as her patrol cap fell from her head and the last thing she saw was the deep blue of his eyes, filled with fear.

The first thing she saw when she woke up was the deep blue of his eyes, filled with relief. She let her head sag to the side and a slow smile spread across her lips as he got up from his chair by her bedside in the infirmary and stood over her. He picked up her hand in his and held it tight.

"You gave me a fright, Sam." he murmured and she nodded slowly. She closed her eyes again when his fingers pushed her fringe a little off her forehead. "You lost a lot of blood."

"I think I lost my grip on my leg pretty early on." she croaked in a rasping voice. She tried to swallow painfully and took a long sip of water through a straw from a cup Cam held in front of her.

"Yeah, your leg is responding well to the Asgard/Tok'ra regeneration treatment, but you're not getting out of here for at least two days. Doc Lam told me I can take you home with me if you promise to let me look after you and not to move on that leg for the rest of the week." He looked at her pointedly, but she only nodded. Frankly the idea of Cam waiting on her for a few days was a little appealing.

"I'll be a good girl." she promised with a teasing smile and a twinkle in her eye. Cam snorted at her before turning around at the sound of Daniel's voice from the door.

"I suppose I should say thanks for the save." the linguist began as he came to stand opposite Cameron while Teal'c followed him in and stood at the foot of her bed. She just shook her head. Daniel looked from her to Cameron and back again. "Just... try to be careful, okay? We're... not willing to lose another Sam Carter." She nodded as he gave her hand a squeeze.

"Thank you, Daniel." She looked from him to Teal'c who bowed his head to her slightly in acknowledgement. "And you, Teal'c."

"Of course, Colonel Carter."


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 8**

Colorado Springs, February 2006 (alternate reality)

Cam pushed the trolley down the aisle of the supermarket and smiled when Sam came around the corner, still limping ever so slightly, with several boxes of jello in her hands, which she dumped into the cart in front of him with a smile. She was moving back in to her place after staying with him for a few weeks since their road trip and they were buying her groceries. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He'd gotten used to seeing her sitting on his couch of an evening, tapping away on her laptop or writing in her journal. Now he was wondering what he was going to do when she was gone.

"I don't know about you, but I'm going to miss always having you nearby." she whispered as she stood by the trolley and idly fidgeted with a head of lettuce. He smiled softly at her admission.

"I am too." he replied. She looked up with a faint flush of her cheeks over a small smile and turned to head up the aisle again as he followed on behind more slowly.

"Then maybe we can... I don't know... arrange something like dinner together a few nights a week? We could alternate or something." she asked, babbling a little as she nervously rubbed her fingers together in front of her.

"I'd like that. What about... Tuesdays, Thursdays and a night on the weekend?" he offered. She smiled brightly and nodded happily. "We can start tonight, at your place. Any ideas what you want to make for me?" She paled slightly and he lifted an eyebrow in curiosity.

"I want to, but the place is kind of a mess still." she replied with a wince.

"I don't care." he said gently, but she shook her head adamantly and he chuckled. "Okay, okay, my place it is then. I know. You cook when it's at my place, and I'll cook at yours. How about that?" She seemed to like that idea very much as she launched into brainstorming about what she could cook for him. He grinned, admittedly he had done the lion's share of the cooking while she stayed with him, especially while she was recuperating, but she'd prepared several meals for them herself. He was looking forward to this.

Maybe she was nervous for some reason, but after they'd driven back to his place, shoved her groceries in his fridge temporarily and she got down to the business of making them a meal, it all went a bit pear-shaped, she was a mess. It's possible that she was trying a little too hard, which hadn't been the case for the small meals she'd made for them over the previous fortnight. He made sure the spills and splashes got cleaned up quickly and did his best to make her at ease with conversation. She rallied and got it together, and after a while she was back to normal.

He came up beside her and his hand came to rest on the small of her back as they talked about an upcoming mission. She dipped the wooden spoon into her saucepan and lifted out a sample to taste, then held it out for him to critique. She cupped her hand below the spoon as he took a taste and smiled with a nod. She leaned a little closer to him as her shoulders sagged slightly in relief.

He wondered idly why it was he had no personal space when it came to her. How he never seemed to feel the need for it. As he turned to face her she leaned her shoulder back against him and turned her head over it to look at him. All he could see were her lips, soft and full, parted ever so slightly and drifting towards him.

No, he had no personal space anymore where Sam was concerned, and he didn't care. He leaned forward a little and captured her lips with his. He closed his eyes as she tilted her head back slightly and his hand moved around her lower back to wrap around her waist while hers moved to lay atop his, her fingers spreading his open so they could nestle in between. His other hand lifted up to touch her cheek and run along the line of her jaw, caressing the soft skin while they kissed.

She tilted her head a little and broke the contact between their lips, her breathing slightly rapid, his eyes opened slowly to see hers twinkling just a span of nothingness away in front of him. He could feel her chest rising and falling in a soft, giddy laugh through her back leaning flush against his chest. Her forehead was still pressed against his and she turned her face slightly and all he could think of was her soft fringe brushing against his skin. He cleared his throat lightly.

"Sam, it's been less than a month, it's been a lifetime, it's been... I don't know anymore. Do you understand what I mean when I say I don't like the thought of you leaving?" he breathed and pulled back a little to get a look at her face. She smiled slightly and nodded, then turned around to face him and raised her hand to his cheek as she leaned forward to kiss him tenderly once more. It was intoxicating.

"Yes, but I need to. Right now we're... I can't believe I'm saying this... we're too close. I can't tell where you end and I begin, Cameron. I won't go far. I won't go for long." she whispered, running her fingertips over the skin of his cheek and around his ear to run into the short hair at the back of his head. Her blue eyes were ablaze and he couldn't look away. "Will you wait for me?" He slipped his arms around her waist and she shifted to press herself against him. He nodded and kissed her smile.

* * *

Stargate Command, February 2006 (alternate reality)

She tapped away at her laptop and reached for her mug of coffee only to find it empty. She frowned slightly and looked up, scrubbing at her eyes. She glanced at the clock on the screen and frowned unhappily. It had only been an hour. She shouldn't be missing seeing him. And it wasn't just for the coffee she knew he'd bring either. She looked over the data from Daniel's communication stone again, specifically the intermittent amplitude spikes in the theta band range. Those were definitely induced by the device. Humans, adult humans at any rate, usually did not see a lot of theta activity. She frowned again. Except sometimes it had been observed while in deeply relaxed or meditative states, or during bursts of creativity.

"Hey, hey, hey. You have the thingamajig out." came his voice from her doorway. She looked up and smiled as he walked in and leaned in close to the Tok'ra long-range subspace communicator. "Aww, it's not hooked up. I was hoping for some pretty lights." She gave him a little smirk and a glare and he put down a mug of coffee in front of her. She looked at it and sighed happily.

"We're nowhere near having a need to hook it up, Cam. I'm still sorting through all this telemetry." she explained, motioning towards the wave patterns moving across her screen. He grunted. He only cared about the blinking lights.

"Are ya gonna tell me what you and Daniel are working on?" he asked, leaning back against her bench with his arms crossed over his chest. She looked up and smiled, but shook her head. "Man, you're both thick as thieves now. It ain't fair." He was adorable when he pouted and grumbled like that.

"This is still pie in the sky stuff. I'm not even sure I can get it to work." she said while glancing at the laptop.

"You can get it to work." he said confidently while laying a hand on her shoulder. She smiled and blushed and let her fingers brush over the back of his hand. "Whatever it is." She grinned.

"You'll be the first to know if we get it up and running." she assured him and he gave her a smile.

"I just don't want Jackson turning into a zombie. Or worse." he warned. She shook her head.

"I won't turn into a zombie." Daniel said as he walked into the lab. "Though 'or worse' is a distinct possibility." He chuckled when Cam glared at him, then gave Sam a wink.

"See? Thick. As. Thieves!" cried Cam as he pointed between them. She was grateful no one seemed to want to spoil these moments with the obvious.

"Is that me?" Daniel asked with a finger pointed at her screen. Sam nodded.

"That's your brain when you're not in residence." She smiled as the linguist came to look over her shoulder.

"There's still a lot going on, isn't there?" Daniel muttered.

"Gah, so full of yourself!" teased Cam and the archaeologist glared at him. Sam laughed at both of them.

"It's all some sort of feedback system." she explained, forestalling the incipient hostilities. "You'll notice there's practically nothing going on in the beta and gamma bands. That's where your motor control and cognition would be showing up." Daniel plucked at his lip as he looked at the graphs showing only very weak responses. They all looked up, startled, when the white flash and distinctive thrum of an Asgard beam deposited Heimdall on the other side of her bench.

"Greetings, all, I'm afraid I can't stay to chat, I'm just here to pick up that," the Asgard pointed at the contraption sitting in the corner of the lab, "Kvasir called and told me he needed it." Sam scowled.

"Wait a minute, I haven't even looked at it. I don't even know what it does!" she pleaded. Heimdall blinked his limpid black orbs at her.

"I'm sorry, Colonel Carter, but, what's the expression? My hands are tied?" replied the alien. Sam looked up forlornly at Cameron and she could see his resistance crumbling.

"Could you at least tell her what it's called, Heimdall?" he asked after managing to tear his gaze from hers. The Asgard looked between them both for long moments.

"As fascinating as I find the concept, Colonel Mitchell, we Asgard do not confer personal appellations upon mundane technological equipment." Heimdall said in his overly brisk manner, Cam blinked and was about to speak when the alien carried on. "Now I simply must be on my way, have a pleasant day." He put a hand on the device and beamed away in a flash of white light.

"Do you give your lab equipment pet names, Sam?" Daniel asked after they'd looked around at each other for a few moments.

"No, but I think Bill calls his mass spectrometer Marianne."

* * *

P2M-903, February 2006 (alternate reality)

She patted Daniel on the back and he moved over to the other side of the ring room and covered the front entrance back outside. She positioned herself so she could cover both that and the doorway which led further into the structure. She gritted her teeth, hoping Cameron wouldn't be too much longer. When she'd felt the Ha'tak lifting up off the pyramid above them her heart began clenching painfully in her chest, but she had to believe he would be okay and just hold the ring transporter from the Jaffa still trying to make their way to the pyramid, not only was it his escape route, but each alien warrior who got past her would be one more for him to deal with up there. She and Daniel both opened fire as a group of Jaffa streamed into the small room. She quickly moved behind the cover of a corner and continued to shoot. Suddenly, the rings activated and came down from the ceiling onto the pad. She was relieved beyond measure when she looked between them and spotted Cameron and Teal'c, with Bra'tac leaning heavily with an arm over each man's shoulder, standing with their weapons raised at the ready. They added their own firepower to the fight and quickly subdued the surprised remnants of Ba'al's garrison.

She moved quickly from her spot in cover to lay a hand on Cameron's shoulder and then Teal'c's. Both indicated to her they were fine and she nodded, checking with Bra'tac who just gave her one of his patented 'don't worry about me, child' looks. She smiled, motioning for them to make their way back down to the Stargate. The remaining Jaffa quickly succumbed to the press of SGC and Tok'ra personnel. They reconnected with Colonel Reynolds and the newly-minted leader of SG-2, Colonel David Dixon, and Sam took their reports of the fighting in the rest of the small valley below the pyramid. It felt slightly odd to be giving orders to full Colonels, but she was nominally in command of the operation. She nodded gratefully at Reynolds as she saw the medics were almost finished giving Teal'c a preliminary check up after having taken care of Bra'tac then formally transferred command to him so he could dismiss her to take Cam and Daniel back to the SGC while Teal'c went to Dakara with Bra'tac. She saluted the Colonel and walked to where Cameron was standing, looking out over the rocky ground and the Stargate. When she approached and stood beside him he gave her a quick glance and a slight smile.

"Sorry, I kind of... lost it." he said softly.

"Yes, you did, Cam." She deliberately added a hint of reproach to her voice and he looked at her with a look of chagrin. "I was very worried." she whispered much more gently and he nodded.

Many hours later she was dressed in her civvies and waiting outside the men's locker room, hovering really, if she were to be honest with herself. She had just returned with Daniel and Teal'c from Dakara following the successful passage of the democratisation referendum in the High Council. She'd been worried ever since they'd returned from P2M-903 and Cam had told her he was heading back to Petersen instead of going with them to the Jaffa capital. She understood why, he was hoping to see Bryce one last time. It had been hard for her to let him go alone though it was obvious he needed to. And now he was in that locker room and she was about to walk right in and drag him home if she had to. She turned at the feel of a large hand on her shoulder and smiled softly at Teal'c as he stood behind her.

"Colonel Mitchell is within?" he asked and she nodded. "I think it would be best, Colonel Carter, if you allow me to speak with him right now. I believe there are things he may ask of me he could not ask of you." Her brows knit though she knew he did not mean what the small wretched corner of her heart expected he meant. "Or needs to say to me which he could never say to you." She looked up at him and nodded once, he bowed slightly as he walked past her. She leaned against the wall beside the door and listened to them talking. She covered her mouth with her hand when Cameron told Teal'c that it was their job to watch each other's backs, that the Jaffa owed him nothing. She wondered if that is what Teal'c meant by something Cam could never say to her. He then asked Teal'c how he had resisted Ba'al's brainwashing.

"To resist the influence of others, knowledge of one's self is most important." the Jaffa told him. Cameron acknowledged him and Teal'c walked out again, only to stop and turn to Sam when Cam spoke again more softly.

"Yeah, I'm working on it." It was a different sadness from that which she remembered from him when he spoke of his Sam. Yet still powerful in its own way. It was laced with a sense of guilt she had noticed when she'd taken that odd alien contraption to him at Petersen before the mission to P2M-903. Teal'c canted his head slightly as he looked at Sam.

"The rest I leave to you, Colonel Carter." he whispered with a nod. She nodded also and waited a few moments before poking her head inside to watch him for a second until he looked up at her. She walked in when he nodded to her and stood in front of him. She didn't say anything, just held out her hand. He put his own inside it and stood up when she pulled on it. He slipped the pamphlet he had been reading into his locker, closed it and let her lead him out into the corridor and towards home. She wasn't going to leave his side tonight.

* * *

P5R-612, February 2006 (alternate reality)

He looked off into the distance and spotted Sam and Teal'c walking side by side at the top of the ridge on their perimeter check. He glanced back at Daniel as he stood with his hands on his hips in the middle of the small set of Ancient ruins they were examining. He lifted the green patrol cap off his head and ruffled his hair before setting his cap back on his head, but back to front. Daniel turned around to look at him from under his bandanna and pointed at a wall covered with glyphs.

"That right there is a warning." he said matter-of-factly. Cam glared at him.

"A warning of what, Jackson?" he demanded, moving forward.

"Not to take the Signet beyond the boundaries of the valley." he replied with a slight smirk. Cam looked around.

"What Signet?" he asked in confusion. Daniel just shrugged. "Jackson." he said in warning.

"If I find anything which could possibly be construed as a Signet you'll be the first to know, Mitchell." Daniel said with a smirk and his hands raised in a placating way. Cam gave him a look and then raised a hand to his radio.

"Sam, Teal'c, come in." he waited until she piped up with an acknowledgement. "Jackson's found a warning in one of these inscriptions not to remove a Signet beyond the borders of the valley."

"What purpose is there in keeping the offspring of swans from roaming beyond this vicinity, Colonel Mitchell?" asked Teal'c with a hint of amusement in his tone.

"Very funny, Mr. Homophonically Inclined." Cam called into the radio with a roll of his eyes at a chuckling Daniel. "I'd advise against picking up any bits of Ancient looking... stuff... and carrying them around with you."

"So if we find any cygnets that happen to have wings, we can let them do as they please?" asked Sam's melodious voice allowing him to clearly _hear_ the smile on her lips.

"Unless they happen to also be some bit of Ancient decorative stonework I think you're okay to ignore them." he said with a sigh and a smile.

"Copy that, Cam, we'll just mark the location if we find anything. See you in a bit." she signed off.

"The funny thing is that both words are Latin in origin, and so likely both Ancient as well." Daniel said with a quick laugh. "Unrelated etymologically though, I assure you." Cam gave him a warning look and pointed at the inscriptions. The archaeologist didn't have to be told twice.

"Maybe this place is in ruins because the Signet's already gone." Cam said after looking around the demolished and dilapidated buildings around the monument Daniel was examining. The archaeologist turned to look at him for a moment.

"I suppose that's feasible." He reached into his pack to get out his camera and began shooting video with voiced commentary. Cam moved off a little ways and remained quiet as much as possible. He crouched down beside some low walls and idly brushed his hands over the top of the tumbled and weather-beaten blocks. He felt her coming up behind him and smiled slightly to himself when she sat down on one of the blocks by his side. He twisted slightly in his crouch and looked at her checking over her P90.

"We didn't find anything." she offered with a slight smile, but without looking up. He grunted and turned to watch Teal'c approaching Daniel over by the inscriptions.

"You've just about won everyone over now I think." he said softly and she did look up at that. "I know you don't want to replace her, but I expect most people will just transfer their relationship with her onto you." She shrugged.

"For the most part those relationships are the same as in my old reality. I'm okay with that." she replied with a rueful smile, then let it drop as her eyes began to glint. "I find myself thinking more about the relationships which are different." He moved his hand over and let the backs of his fingers brush against her thigh, she smiled at the contact. "Remember when I told you I was scared of how you affected me in ways the Cameron from my old reality didn't?" He nodded. "I'm not anymore." she said as her hand moved to slip into his and hold it against her leg. "You're coming to my place tonight, right?"

"Of course." he replied. She smiled. "I was thinking a simple penne al'arrabbiata." She giggled slightly. "What?"

"You do like your pasta." she murmured. He grumbled only for her to reach over and caress his cheek. "I like your pasta too." she said with a grin.

"Hey! No flirting until we're back at the SGC, you wastrels!" cried Daniel from in front of the monument as he pointed at them in warning. Sam chuckled and waved at the linguist happily. "They're like a pair of teenagers, Teal'c." he said in irritation as he turned back around. Teal'c simply followed him with his gaze as he stood slightly to the side with his hands clasped behind his back.

"You forget I am over a century old, Daniel Jackson. To me, you are all mere youngsters." the Jaffa said after a few seconds. Daniel turned a glare on him.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 9**

USS Prometheus, above Tegalus, February 2006 (alternate reality)

Sam worked frantically to finish the last connections between the naquadah generator and the main power junction aboard Prometheus. She cursed herself again for having not foreseen the possibility that the Ori weapon satellite in orbit over Tegalus would have shields. She should have seen it in the tell-tale voids in the blueprints brought to them by Jared Kane. She'd frowned at how obviously incomplete they'd been. Entire systems were missing from the plans, clearly being from an early phase in the construction, there hadn't even been anything about what the power source was. She should have noticed the empty spaces on the ring which girded the entire satellite. Even without indications that defenses were even a feature of the design, there were side-viewing sensors, obviously capable of detecting approach from space which was just contradictory if the satellite didn't have any kind of defense against something more powerful than what the Caledonians could throw at it. She'd gotten a bad feeling about it, but she hadn't been able to point to anything at the time.

They'd concluded that Prometheus was more than capable of destroying the satellite, should the plans be accurate. As long as the Asgard kept the Ori mothership penned in at the other end of the spiral arm as they had been for a while, then things should go fairly smoothly. Which of course they hadn't. They had in fact started off very badly and gotten progressively worse. Not only had they not heard from Daniel since he'd left for Tegalus with Kane, but the satellite was far more powerful than anything they'd imagined. The beam weapon just tore through Prometheus' shields as if they weren't there. And Cam... she shook her head. Cam was doing what he thought he had to. He'd just better come back to her or she'd... She didn't know what she'd do. She didn't dare contemplate it. It was unthinkable.

She closed off the final connection and headed for the corridor and quickly ran over to a pair of crew members slowly making their way towards the junction and the Asgard beam sensor, one of whom was injured. She ignored the cry of pain the man made as she pulled his arm around her shoulder, and helped the woman on his other side, hustle him over to where the internal sensor beacon was located. After a few moments of standing still for the computer to acknowledge them, they were enveloped by a white shimmer and deposited in a field of tall grass ringed by trees. Sam helped carry the man over to where some medics had set up and nodded to Captain Marks who was receiving treatment.

"Any sign of Colonel Pendergast?" she asked only for the man to shake his head. Something told her to look up and she nearly cried out as she saw a flash of orange high above them. She raised her hand to her mouth as it all came crashing down on her at once. How she'd lived through this before. She blinked rapidly, trying to maintain her composure. She couldn't give in to the fear, not here, not now. If the Colonel wasn't here then she was in charge. She didn't even want to think about the possibility of Cam and the rest of Blue Squadron possibly being targeted next. He was smart enough not to give the Rand military a chance to get them. She had to believe that. She would see him again. She quickly arranged for the various section and crew chiefs to do head counts and report to her, then settled in to wait for the arrival of the Caledonian military who were surely on their way. Always in the back of her mind was the refrain, be safe Cameron.

* * *

The Capitol, Alba, Caledonian Federation, Tegalus, February 2006 (alternate reality)

He was starting to get desperate. He couldn't blame Minister Chaska, after all, she probably had no more information to give him. He just needed to know she'd made it. Losing her again... he couldn't even contemplate it, it would end him. He glanced at Teal'c who was watching him with a careworn gaze. He sighed and listened to what the Caledonian politician was telling him.

"We were monitoring the entire exchange. To our knowledge, seventy-six crew were recovered in Caledonian territory." she said to him with a small tilt of her head. He grimaced.

"There were over a hundred and fifteen people aboard that ship!" he exclaimed, trying to keep his voice under some semblance of control while speaking to someone who was, in essence, the leader of her people.

"Do you have any sort of a manifest, a list of names we can compare to those recovered?" she asked, understandably trying to make what was a very grim business at least somewhat more manageable. Cam's demeanour darkened somewhat, if he was honest with himself there was only one name he wanted to check for right at that moment, but he had to remember where he was, to whom he was speaking and what his duty now pertained.

"Not on me, no." He sighed slightly. "So where are our people?" he asked wondering how long it would be before he at least knew.

"The transport arrived moments ago." Chaska replied and he looked at the door as a familiar set of black BDUs passed into the room topped with her tousled blonde locks and her blue eyes shining as she locked her gaze with his.

"Cameron! Teal'c!" called Sam as she quickened her pace slightly and held her arms forward. He was already moving straight towards her and engulfed her in his embrace.

"Sam! You are a sight for sore eyes." he said and pressed her to his chest as he leaned closely and whispered very softly into her ear. "I'm so relieved you're alright." She leaned her cheek against his and he felt her nod and the look in her eyes when she pulled back after their too-brief embrace told him she was feeling the same as he was, there was also something else there, under it all, something he recognised. She turned to Teal'c who took a hold of both of her upper arms and regarded her with visible emotion passing across his features. Cam bit his lip at how obviously moved the Jaffa was. At how completely he'd come to accept Sam as one of them now.

"It is good to see you, Colonel Carter. We feared the worst." Teal'c said in a low voice, not having to say how badly affected they would all be had they lost her once more, as they already feared they'd lost Daniel. She gave him a weak smile and a small nod. Cam reached out and touched the small of her back lightly and he was gratified when he felt her leaning against it until she was almost pressed to his side. He sighed and she looked at him sadly, acknowledging they would have to wait.

And wait they did, while they mourned silently for those they'd lost aboard Prometheus, while they worked to formulate a plan to take out the Ori satellite with nothing except baling wire, duct tape and bubblegum – McGuyver style. It helped they had some F302s lying around to take apart and a long range missile they could borrow from the Caledonians. Well, he supposed 'borrow' was the wrong word, since they wouldn't get it back.

He watched Sam working on the missile with several techs from Prometheus and the local missile engineers who were gaping slightly at the dismantled Tau'ri space fighter off to the side. He watched her as she straightened up and stretched her back with a hand on her hip. She lifted her hand, passing one of the long sleeves of her shirt across her brow and looked over at him. He saw it again, the haunted look from earlier. He cursed silently knowing that now wasn't the time, right then they could only work and do what they could to accomplish the mission. He tried to tell her with a look that he was going to find her afterwards, that he would be there for her. She seemed to notice it because she just nodded before turning back to give directions to one of the techs.

An hour later he approached her with some food and drink he'd picked up from the Caledonian's refectory at the military base they had landed their F302s. She burbled in gratitude and took a big bite out of the baked meat and vegetable pastry and washed it down with the cool but spicy fruit juice. She sighed happily and he moved her over to one of the benches where she bonelessly sagged down onto the seat before taking another bite. When he sat down next to her she leaned against him rather more heavily than he had been expecting.

"Sam?" he filled that single word with every enquiry he could think of and he knew by the look in her eyes that she understood. She just shook her head.

"I can't, Cam. Not yet. I can't think about anything except the work." she murmured. He nodded, just taking her weight against his side as she took another long slug of the juice and a bite of the pastry. She held it up to him and he smiled and took a bite as well.

"You're going to need rest in a little while." he warned her after silently chewing his mouthful of savoury pastry. She sighed and nodded.

"I know. I just... I don't want to give myself the time to... imagine." she whispered. He lifted his arm up over her head and around her shoulder, letting it slide down her back to wrap around her waist. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. "It's not so bad when you're here." He drew his lips tight in worry, all he could do was get her to rest for a little while before letting her resume her work.

To say he was relieved when he heard Daniel's voice coming in over the radio, as he powered his F302 towards the defenceless satellite after their jury-rigged EMP bomb had disrupted power to the Rand Protectorate control bunker, would be an understatement. However he nearly snarled audibly when the linguist asked him not to destroy it. After Minister Chaska ordered him to stand down he just knew this wasn't going to go well. They'd done what they could and as long as he could get his people back to Earth then he was going to grab at that chance with both hands.

It took a couple of days, but they were reunited with Daniel, who'd bagged a ride with the transport carrying the Stargate. If Cameron knew him as well as he thought he did it was more likely the archaeologist didn't want to let the 'gate out of his sight until it was formally handed over to the Caledonians. Something Cam could appreciate. To witness Daniel's pleasure at seeing everyone, especially Sam, made Cam smile. Sam nearly crushed the man in her hug. She probably would have done him an injury hugging him that tightly years before when Daniel was a far scrawnier academic. They helped the Caledonians set up the Stargate at an adequate facility and began shepherding their people back through to Earth. He and his team were the last to walk through, after providing Minister Chaska with the address of a very suitable world, and the promises of construction and agricultural aid for her people.

He still hadn't managed to get any time to himself with Sam, and he could tell she wasn't doing so well. So as soon as their medicals were done and the interminable briefings – with Landry, the IOA, everyone who cared to ask them stupid questions – were done, he went to find her. She'd holed herself up in her lab, staring at that Tok'ra device he was told was some sort of communicator. He didn't even give her a chance to protest, just grabbed her jacket and lifted her out of her chair with a proffered hand. She'd actually been waiting for him it seemed and that was fine with him. He drove her home and as soon as the door was closed behind them she was pressed tightly against him with her arms snaked under his jacket and around his back. He held her closely.

"Sam, honey," her breathing hitched slightly when he spoke, but he carried on, "it's just us now, please let me help." She nodded without taking her face away from where she'd buried it in his neck. He sighed and lifted a hand to run it through her short hair as he waited for her. It took several minutes, but she eventually pulled away and moved further into her house as she pulled on his hand. She began to take off her jacket and let it fall to the floor with only a momentary loss of contact between her fingers and his. He did likewise, but managed to throw his jacket over the bannister leading up her stairs. She pulled him towards her living room and pushed him down onto her couch and just slumped against his side, her legs folded under her. He pulled her against him and again stroked her hair as she rested her head on his chest.

"I should have noticed the shields." she breathed at last in a broken voice. He clenched his jaw.

"There was nothing about shields on those schematics, Sam." he intoned only for her to shake her head.

"There were clues, power conduits running to empty spaces in the ring, side-viewing sensors that watch deep space and not the surface." He felt her pressing her face tightly into his chest and he knew she was crying. "There was no other purpose for that ring structure except to house shield projectors." Her hand on his chest clutched and bunched the material of his shirt between her clenching fingers. "I got them all killed." she whispered.

"No!" he cried vehemently and pushed her away from him a little to look directly at her as he held her upper arms. "Don't you even think that, Sam." he said in a fiercely commanding tone. "Don't you dare." She refused to look at him until he forced her to face him with a hand on her cheek. "You and Pendergast saved the lives of seventy-six people on Prometheus, and then you saved the lives of millions of Tegaluns with that EMP bomb which forced Rand to come to a settlement. You did that!" She canted her head to the side and her brows knit as he spoke while tears rolled down her cheeks. "You didn't get Pendergast or the rest of our people on Prometheus killed. You're not to blame, just like Kane could only get us early schematics, you could only go by on what was in those plans." She shook her head and he pulled her in tight to him again.

"I saw Prometheus explode." she breathed and he finally understood. It finally dawned on him where the haunted look came from. "I saw it explode in the sky above us and even though I knew you weren't aboard..."

"That's enough, Sam. I understand." he whispered and she clutched at him. "I'm here."

"I can't lose you, Cameron. I can't be left behind again." She looked up at him and he knew she could see the same in his eyes. "You can't either, can you?" He shook his head. She looked into his eyes for long moments as he brushed away her tears with his thumb. "Stay with me tonight, Cam. Say you will." she pleaded.

"I'll stay with you tonight, Sam. Tomorrow night. Any other night." he said in reply. She pressed herself against him and draped her arm across his chest. He rubbed at her back with one hand while the other simply caressed her cheek as she closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

* * *

USS Odyssey, en route to intercept Ba'al's Ha'tak, March 2006 (alternate reality)

She glared at him from her spot in the armoury as she gathered up some extra magazines for her P90. He looked up after fitting the C-Mag drum to his HK G36K and smiled sheepishly at her. Daniel and Teal'c were subdued. It hadn't been the best couple of days for Cameron or SG-1, and it was all his fault.

P6G-452 was a nondescript farming world in a nondescript system filled with nondescript people. _Except_ for the fact that the planet grew nothing except kassa and it was all run by the Lucian Alliance. As pure reconnaissance missions went this one started out okay, until Cam decided to forego the whole recon aspect of the mission in favour of a more active undercover method of intelligence gathering. Worrel, the local Lucian Alliance chief, wasn't that smart, but he _was_ suspicious bordering on paranoid. A combination that never went well with undercover work. So of course Cam, who'd assigned himself the role of lead 'negotiator', got himself nabbed when he went to meet with the Lucian Alliance head man. A situation they'd managed to extricate him from _somehow_. They'd have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for that pesky Ba'al beaming away the Stargate and DHD just as they were about to dial home.

So they spent the next two days as the guests of the local laird. Who along with being, not so smart and suspicious to the point of paranoia, was also stubborn when it came to prisoners following the script which he'd prepared for them in his head. Namely that they had stolen his Stargate, while stupidly being in the process of trying to use it. Obviously, their accomplices who'd spirited away the 'gate were somehow unable to also spirit _them_ away in a similar fashion. It was this stubbornness in the face of logic, common sense, the plain old unvarnished truth and then the plain old unvarnished nonsensical gibberish, which ensured they each were sporting several bruises up and down their ribs and faces. Something she knew Cameron was very upset about. None of this had anything to do with why she was glaring at him, however.

"Mary Poppins?" she asked in a low, irritated voice. Teal'c and Daniel both froze while Cam hung his head and sighed.

"I just meant you were practically perfect in every way." Cam said at last as he looked up to meet her gaze. Damn the man! She should have known! Daniel began laughing as Teal'c raised a curious brow.

"Oh, you walked right into that one, Sam." the linguist said with a glance over his shoulder. She glared at him.

"Shut up, Daniel." she growled and he raised his hands in surrender while grabbing at the bag of transponder beacons they would be attaching to the Stargates and DHDs in the hold of Ba'al's Ha'tak after they boarded it. She turned her ire back on Cameron with a point of her finger. "You and I," she flicked her finger to herself then back to him, "we'll be having some words later on tonight." she warned.

"Yes, ma'am." Cam replied as he flexed the muscles in his left cheek which had taken such a pounding over the last couple of days. She sighed, realising she'd have to be gentle with him. And it wasn't as if she wasn't aching all over herself, she yearned for nice, long, hot bath. Even just a shower would do. They began filing out of the armoury as they finished gearing up, but a little flick of her head brought Cameron over to her side with the G36K propped up in the crook of his elbow.

"I'm in quite a bit of pain, Cameron." she growled softly as his brows furrowed unhappily. "You have to take responsibility and fix that." She lifted her eyebrows at him and watched as a slow smile spread across his lips. "Later." she whispered, leaning forward to kiss his broad smile tenderly.

"Yes, ma'am." he breathed against her lips as she pulled away with a smile of her own.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 10**

Samantha Carter's house, Colorado Springs, March 2006 (alternate reality)

Sam stretched out her arms above her head on the bed, pushing back languorously against the headboard. Cam smiled at her long contented sigh and each small hesitant groan when a muscle popped in her back, the pitch of each sound she made told him it didn't hurt so much. He'd done his best to see to that. She went limp with another long sigh and turned her head to face him where he sat at the edge of the bed, wiping his hands clean on a towel.

"That isn't the first time you've done that." she murmured huskily. He smiled softly and shook his head.

"When I was in Japan," he explained, "I took a few lessons from the woman who ran the local seafood restaurant. She used to work in a massage parlour in her youth." Sam propped her cheek up on her forearms as Cam set the towel aside with her bottles of oils and lotions and leaned back against her headboard, he tugged on the corner of the towel she was still lying on and she obligingly shifted so he could pull it out from under her and set it aside with the other one. "She insisted that it was an absolutely necessary skill to have if I wanted to impress any woman, but that it was beyond the abilities of my clumsy American fingers." He flourished his hands and Sam giggled.

"I'll disagree with her assertion. I can almost believe I didn't get beaten up recently." When she closed her eyes Cam could only smile.

"Well, I went easy on account of that. Your feeling better is mostly up here." He tapped her temple softly with the tip of his finger and she scrunched up her face adorably without opening her eyes, sighing again.

"Whatever the cause, I'm feeling a lot better." she supplied sleepily. Cam chuckled and got up off the bed. His movement startled Sam a little and she followed him with a slightly irritated look until he came around to her side of the bed. She turned over slightly, propping herself up on an elbow and draping her hand on a bare as looked up at him curiously. He could definitely see the exhaustion on her face as he knelt down by the bed to get to her eye level. She smiled softly and reached over to caress his cheek. "Are you planning to tuck me in?"

"Hmm, the thought had crossed my mind." He gave her a gentle smile as she couldn't stifle a yawn. She was too tired to even protest and merely nodded as she moved to sit up at the side of the bed. Cam stood and helped her up as well and she walked slowly towards her bathroom to get ready for sleep. When she came back and walked around the bed, Cam had already turned over her sheets and was just waiting for her, she stood in front of him and pulled his head against her stomach, ruffling his hair and kissing the top of his head. He looked up at her as his hands slipped around her waist and gently caressed her back.

"Tuck yourself in with me, okay?" she whispered to his breathy chuckle. She pushed him back and climbed in next to him, rolling around so her back was tucked in against his chest. He smiled against her blonde locks and brought her comforter up over them both, then let his arm slip down to pull her in tight against him.

* * *

Stargate Command, March 2006 (alternate reality)

"That's exactly what you said about the ruins on P5R-612, Daniel." she said without looking up from her laptop. Even so, she could feel the linguist's glare on her as he sat on the other side of her workbench. "And we found nothing about Merlin's weapon there." She pressed a few keys on her keyboard as she bit her lip and looked over to the Tok'ra communicator further down her bench. She saw several lights flare up and flash in a complex sequence then die away. She grinned happily.

"Yes, well, I'm dealing with some... vague sources here, Sam." Daniel groused. She looked up and gave him a reassuring smile. He huffed and looked away slightly. "It's not going to be Camelot, but I think I'll find something about it there." She was smiling at him when he looked back to her. "How about that thing?" he asked, nodding towards the communicator. "Is it ready?"

"Just about. I've got the protocol for simulating the stone impulses pretty much down. Of course, it will only work for you, since we can't actually _create_ a connection without a stone, we have no telemetry on that." She sighed sheepishly. "That's one of the reasons I've been kind of hedging on telling Cam about it. You know he'd want to take your place if he could." Daniel smiled slightly and shrugged. "I'm just figuring out the actual communications mechanism for the listening monitor, and properly interfacing the stone simulator with the communicator itself." Daniel nodded and she looked down at her watch. "Isn't it about time for mission prep?" she asked, only to immediately look to her door when Cam bustled in and clapped his hands together softly.

"Come on, you two, we've got a mission!" he said enthusiastically, hooking his thumb over his shoulder before walking right back out without waiting for them to reply.

"Has he always been like that?" Daniel asked as he stared out the open doorway with a small frown. Sam's breath hitched slightly at the question, at what was left unsaid.

"Yes, ever since we met at the Academy. He's exactly the same." she breathed as she stood up and set her laptop to shut down. "Better not keep him waiting, you know how he gets." Daniel smiled at her and nodded as he stood up to follow her out the door.

An hour later they were walking down the corridor to the 'gate room where they'd be collecting their weapons from a pair of waiting airmen from the Quartermaster's office.

"I'm just a 'glass-half-full' kind of guy." Cam told them as if he was saying something they weren't all very aware of. "We found a cure to the Prior's plague, and we got it out to the planets that needed it."

"And it has been some time since the last reported outbreak." Teal'c intoned as he walked alongside them with his hands clasped behind his back.

"That's right," Cam declared with a little point of his finger at the Jaffa, "so I'm chalking that one up in the 'win' column."

"The Asgard actually seem to be enjoying themselves keeping the Ori mothership on the run at the end of the Perseus spiral arm." Sam said with a smile. Cam gave her a little glare.

"I was just getting to that." he muttered and she grinned, bumping shoulders with him. He tottered theatrically and smiled at her.

"Look, all I'm saying is let's not get carried away." Daniel said as they walked into the embarkation room and checked over the weapons handed to them while the open wormhole shimmered in the Stargate behind them. "Yes, we're doing well against them right now, but you can be damn sure they're already thinking up some other means of spreading fear and destruction through this galaxy."

"Yeah, that's why we call them the bad guys." Cam said sarcastically as he clipped his P90 to his tac vest. Daniel gave him a little glare.

"And by the looks of things, the next one's going to be something big." Daniel elaborated on his point. "The Priors are already starting to step up their rhetoric with all this talk of doomsday, 'When all shall witness the final battle between the light and darkness.'"

"That's what they said about Tyson-Holyfield. There's always a rematch." Cam muttered as Sam slapped the bill of his patrol cap playfully. He grinned at her before turning to all of them and walking backwards towards the ramp, leading the way for his team. "Alright, let's move out. Those ancient ruins aren't going to explore themselves."

"Hold up, SG-1." came General Landry's voice over the 'gate room speakers. They stopped halfway up the ramp and turned towards the control room, various degrees of curiosity evident on each of their faces. Landry was leaning down towards Walter and told him to shut down the Stargate, which fizzled away behind them. Sam frowned slightly as she looked from the ring back towards the General. "Your mission has been scrubbed."

* * *

Cameron Mitchell's house, Colorado Springs, March 2006 (alternate reality)

"I hate you." she said while still blatantly resting her head on his shoulder as the credits rolled on their movie, Daniel got up from his seat to grab more beers for everyone except Teal'c, who just preferred fruit juice, and Heimdall, who wasn't allowed any after what happened the last time he'd had alcohol. "I can't believe you made us watch that after the day we've had."

"The day we've had is exactly the reason why it had to be 'Starship Troopers', Sam." he replied with a small smile as he snuck in a quick kiss of the top of her head.

"I found it most enjoyable, Colonel Mitchell." Teal'c offered with a smile. "I particularly enjoyed the scene where the Lieutenant's brain was sucked out of his head." Sam gagged theatrically while Daniel laughed.

"I am most intrigued how none of you show the least hesitancy in accepting the things you watch as real, even if only for the duration of the entertainment." Heimdall put forward from his control chair. "I believe you call the phenomenon 'willing suspension of disbelief'. I find it eminently fascinating." he added as he looked to each of them and blinked slowly.

"How else are we gonna believe in little grey space aliens, Heimdall old pal. Ain't no sense in it otherwise." Cam said as Sam gaped and gave him a slap on the arm.

"I see, that was most amusing." Heimdall said happily. "Implying the only reason you accept my own existence, being a 'little grey space alien' as you put it, is through the willing suspension of disbelief, even though I am plainly sitting right before your eyes."

"Yeah, but there's actually a grain of truth at the core of my joke." he added and Sam chuckled to herself. The Asgard blinked again.

"What he means, Heimdall," Daniel put forward as he took a fruit juice to Teal'c and handed Sam and Cameron beers before sitting back down with his own brew, "is that human senses are notoriously fallible, at all points along the process. It could be bad eyesight, like me."

"Or the brain chemistry of the observer could be out of balance, causing delusions or hallucinations." Sam added.

"Or, even if all of that is working fine, our brains themselves can make stuff up just to fill in the gaps in our perception." Cam explained. Heimdall blinked. "Get five humans to describe the same event and you'll get five different accounts."

"How can humans function at all with such a limitation, unable to trust their own senses?" asked Heimdall.

"Willing suspension of disbelief." Daniel replied and they all laughed.

"We should watch 'Rashomon' at our next gathering." Teal'c intoned. Cam snapped his fingers.

"Good one, T-man!" he cried and Sam nodded. "Man, it's been ages since I've seen a Kurosawa flick. Gotta dig out my copy of 'Yojimbo'."

"Better than 'Last Man Standing'." offered Sam as she looked up at him, he smiled at her, impressed, and wondering when she'd watched those films.

"Fascinating. We Asgard suffer no such failings of our sensory perceptions. Perhaps this is a factor in how our personalities differ so highly from yours." Heimdall murmured. "I think I will investigate this. I must take my leave of you, thank you once again for the invitation."

"Anytime, buddy." Cam said with a smile and a wave. Sam also waved to the Asgard before he beamed himself and his chair back up to his science vessel in orbit.

"What an excuse to get out of doing dishes." Daniel muttered. "Investigating the role that failure of sensory perception plays in the differences in Human and Asgard personality and culture."

"And I thought Loki was supposed to be the trickster." Cam said with a quick swig of his beer. Daniel smiled and nodded as Teal'c took a sip of his orange juice to cover a subtle smirk. Sam giggled a little which turned into a yawn. "Yeah, maybe we should call it early tonight, we didn't get much sleep last night what with the bug problem." Daniel nodded again. "I can take care of the clean up, no worries."

"Teal'c, do you think you can drive Daniel back to his place? I'm sure you can call for a car to pick you up and take you back to base." Sam gave the Jaffa a hopeful smile and he nodded.

"Gladly, Colonel Carter." Teal'c stood and Daniel reluctantly handed him the keys to his Jeepster.

"Do you even have a license, big guy?" asked Cameron, Teal'c merely turned around and raised an eyebrow before he and Daniel bid them farewell. "We'll get together and start looking for an apartment for you, T-Man. Real soon now!" Cam called only for the Jaffa to growl at him in warning. Sam laughed and Cam looked at her with a smile. "You going too?" He smiled when she shook her head.

"I'd like to stay a little longer, if that's alright." she replied and snuggled into his side. He nodded as his fingers found their way into her blonde locks.

"I'd like you to come and go as please, if that's alright." he said softly as he dug out a key from his pocket and held it up to her. She looked at it with wide eyes.

"Are you sure?" she asked barely above a whisper.

"Positive." he replied and she smiled broadly as she took the key and looked at it. "I already think of wherever you are as my home." he whispered. She closed her fingers into a fist around the key and sat up straight on the seat next to him. He looked over to her as she pivoted on a knee and straddled him to sit in his lap.

"I do too, Cameron. Wherever you are is where I want to be." she breathed as she held the key up before slipping it into the pocket of her jeans. She watched his eyes for a moment as his hands settled on her waist, then she shifted forward slightly with her hands on his shoulders and leaned down to kiss him lightly on the lips. "I love you, Cameron." she whispered as she looked down into his eyes. He couldn't help the smile lifting up the corners of his mouth or the heat which rose from his chest, up his neck and over his cheeks. She smiled at his reaction. "I love you, Cameron." she repeated and smiled again when his reaction was the same. She really was the consummate scientist.

"I love you too, Sam." He lifted a hand to caress her cheek as she bit her lips and blinked rapidly with eyes that had gone turbulent and watery. "I've always loved you." She put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him fiercely, hungrily. He pulled her in tighter to him and one of her arms curled around the back of his neck, running into his hair.

She flicked at his lips with a darting tongue and deepened the kiss when he parted his lips in invitation. Each kiss lasted longer, tasted sweeter and became more ardent, leaving him breathless and only more desperate for her touch. He needed her to know how sure he was. His hands held her cheeks and he pulled away slightly, nearly losing his resolve as she furrowed her brow and made mewling sounds of protest at the separation.

"I need you to understand something, Sam. When I say I love you, I mean _you_." His fingers ran across her cheek and into her hair. She watched him for a moment. "Do you believe me?" Her lower lip trembled slightly and she bit down on it as she nodded slowly. "I love you, Samantha Carter. You are _my_ Sam." he said in a hoarse whisper and she forcefully sought his lips again with hers. Clutching at the back of his neck with all the strength she could muster in her fingers. This time her kisses were desperate and raw, leaving his lips aching and bruised. He could feel her heart thundering away in her chest as she gasped for air and locked his gaze with her shimmering blue eyes, filled with her need for him.

* * *

Samantha Carter's house, March 2006 (alternate reality)

She frowned slightly as her awareness crystallised and focused on her back. She felt subtle pressure, feather-light touches. She tried to groan the sleepiness from her mind only for the skin around the points being touched to begin tingling as her brain started assigning higher priorities to external stimuli. She felt the sunlight on her back, the warmth breaking through her curtains and shining down on her bed, but it was where he was touching her, caressing her skin, that felt like it was on fire. She pressed herself into the pillow and let out a moan at the invasion of day. She did like waking up to him though. She pushed up slowly and his fingers moved up her spine to the nape of her neck and across a shoulder when she turned over and settled back down on the bed. His fingers didn't stop moving, just drifted back down her collar bone to settle in the hollow above her sternum, then slowly ran down her breastbone as the tips of outstretched fingers just brushed against her breasts before moving down her abdomen to circle around her navel.

"Are you the new alarm clock I ordered?" she asked huskily. He smiled at her and she frowned when she saw he was nearly fully dressed.

"If I am then you need to get your money back. We've got an hour to get to the SGC." he replied and laughed when she bolted off the bed and ran for her bathroom, cursing him all the way even as she began brushing her teeth and running the water for a shower all at the same time. After quickly ducking her head under the water she found a towel in front of her which she stepped into without thinking about it, walked out of the bathroom to find some clothes waiting on the bed which she put on as quickly as she could, then stepped out into the hall to find a covered mug of coffee hovering right where her hand could reach for it and a slice of toast with raspberry jam right where her mouth could bite down on it.

"Okay, I won't kill you until tomorrow." she murmured as she accepted a good morning kiss and then licked some jam from the corner of his mouth. "You driving?" she asked before taking another bite.

"Well, we can get there on time or we can get there five minutes early and need a new set of tires and brakes." he replied and she took the keys. "Alright, but I'm coming to you when I need to pay for those parts." They arrived five minutes early, and Cam was wincing after he got out to kneel down by his right front wheel and bathed in the warmth created by the tortured brake pad as he felt the inside tread of the tire. She grinned at him over the hood of his car as he stood up and walked with her towards the mountain entrance.

"With five minutes I can get myself some jello from the mess." she explained as he chuckled and flashed his ID at the sergeant on duty. They got changed from their civvies into BDUs and he walked with her to the mess to grab a bowl of jello which she ate on the way to the briefing room, hoovering it all up and handing the bowl to a confused Master Sergeant Siler as he walked past. They walked in just as General Landry came in from his office to conduct his Homeworld Security briefing for his senior military officers. It went the way these meetings usually did, that is to say, slowly, until the end when Landry pointed at her and Cameron.

"I need both of you to go to Washington to be our liaisons with NID and brief them on the Lucian Alliance kassa operations we've uncovered so far. They need to be on the look out should any of this stuff begin to show up on Earth." the General said with a lift of his eyebrows as they both looked at him sullenly.

"How would we filter any cases of addictive pathology caused by kassa from everything else we already have here on Earth, sir?" asked Colonel Dixon. Landry shook his head and shrugged.

"I don't know, Colonel, but I guess seeing as the plant is alien in origin it falls to us to try to deal with it." he replied and dismissed them all. Cam stayed seated and tapped the end of his pencil on a letter pad until only he, Sam and General Landry were left in the room. Sam looked at him worriedly, wondering at the frown he was trying his best to hide.

"I'm getting a vibe, Colonel." began Landry with an amused shrug of his shoulders. Cam looked up at him.

"Are we being punished, sir?" he asked and Sam bit her lip as she moved her hand under the table to rest it over the top of his thigh. He glanced at her and gave her a quick shake of his head.

"Have you done anything you should be punished for, son?" Landry asked as he looked between Cameron and Sam. She blinked at how jovial he seemed. Cam's brow furrowed. "I'm not aware of any regulations left in the military code of conduct that deal with interpersonal relationships. I understand they were done away with some time ago." He stood and they both shot up. "No, Colonels, I'm not punishing you. You both simply have the most first-hand knowledge of anyone available since Colonel Reynolds is still off-world on deep cover recon." He walked towards his office, but stopped at his door and turned towards them. "Oh, and I'm glad for you both, just... not on the base."

"Yes, sir." they both said automatically. She turned to look at Cameron with a slight hint of reproach.

"What?" he asked.

"Are we being punished?" she intoned with a cant of her head. He shrugged and held out his hands. She shook her head. "Cameron, you're looking at this assignment the wrong way." she explained as she gathered up her pad and looked over the notes she'd taken during the meeting, grinning when she got to the one Cameron had reached over and written himself, 'swot', emblazoned over a blank space in his bold hand. She looked up at him with a smile to find him furrowing his brow her way in confusion. She rolled her eyes. "Two days in Washington, and only a few hours each day will be filled with meetings." He perked up as comprehension slowly washed over his eyes. "Right." she said with a grin. "Let's go tell Teal'c and Daniel then go home to pack. We'll have to leave this afternoon."

"I knew there was a reason I loved you so much. You're so smart!" he cried and scooped up his pad, conspicuously empty as it was.

"And such a swot, right?" she asked with a lift of her eyebrow as she swept out the door he was holding open for her. She liked that about him.

"You know you are! Me, I keep it all up here." he said as he tapped the side of his head with the end of his pencil. She smirked at him and knocked the side of his head. "Hey! That could have been some valuable bit of intel that just got knocked out my ear."

"Good thing I took notes." she replied and slapped the top of his head with her pad as she spun around on her heels in front of him.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 11**

The Pentagon, Washington D.C., March 2006 (alternate reality)

"Sam. Good to see you again, that is, if you know me... or knew me." said a voice from behind them as they walked down a nondescript corridor inside the headquarters of the Department of Defense. Cam turned around to spot Agent Malcolm Barrett of the NID and Sam smiled warmly as she shook Barrett's hand with an admonition for assuming she wouldn't know him. The agent turned and greeted Cam as well. "Colonel Mitchell, I've read a lot about you, and I understand you're the one we should all thank for Sam being here." Cam shook the agent's hand and shrugged the shoulders of his dress blues.

"I just selfishly seized an opportunity." he admitted. He glanced at Sam and basked for a moment in her radiant smile. "We have been sent here, Agent Barrett, to inform you and your peers that the galaxy is infested with corn." he said mock-seriously. "Evil space corn, with plans to invade our own fair planet."

"Cameron..." Sam said with a hint of warning in her tone as Agent Barrett simply adopted a poker face.

"That is very grave news, Colonel, I'm sure any information you may have for us with regards to this... corn... will be very carefully considered." he intoned in exactly the same tone Cam used.

"Malcolm!" Sam cried in astonishment. Cam just grinned at her.

"Come on, Sam. If you can't laugh at evil space corn you just haven't watched enough B-movies." he said reproachfully. "Ain't that right, Barrett?" Cam asked with a glance.

"Absolutely. Still, don't worry, Sam, we will be entirely serious once inside the briefing room." He leaned in and held his hand up for an aside. "The IOA will be joining us."

"And everyone knows none of us have a sense of humour." intoned Richard Woolsey from behind Agent Barrett. "Good morning to all of you. It's good to see you both once again Colonel Mitchell, Colonel Carter, whatever the circumstances." he said with a glance towards Sam. "It will be good working with you again, Agent Barrett."

"As always, Mr. Woolsey." Barrett said with a smile.

"What brings the IOA to this little shindig, Mr. Woolsey?" asked Cam with a little hint of suspicion.

"Anything such as this, which is specifically targeted at civilians, is of great concern to the IOA, Colonel." explained Woolsey. "The potential ramifications are unfathomable." Cam had to tilt his head in agreement when he looked at Sam.

"We'll tell you all we know and answer any questions you have, Mr. Woolsey. Though things fell apart rather quickly on P6G-452." Sam said and Cam unconsciously rubbed the left side of his face.

"My bad." he muttered and smiled slightly when Sam threw him an understanding glance and a sigh.

They began walking towards the briefing room, but Sam stopped after Agent Barrett laid a hand on her arm. She nodded for Cam to continue on inside when he turned and he nodded back to her before following behind Woolsey. Cam's part of this particular day's briefing was to lay out in minute detail what the SGC knew of the Lucian Alliance's likely sphere of influence and military disposition. It wasn't much and it wasn't as accurate as it could be, but then again the Alliance didn't make a habit of flaunting their strength, they were mainly a criminal organisation gone quasi-governmental on an interstellar scale. They controlled planets and shipping and held a sizeable chunk of infrastructure left behind after the fall of the Goa'uld. At least, what wasn't consumed by the Replicators.

Still, all of it marked the Lucian Alliance as a threat, and would have positioned them as a primary adversary of Earth if it hadn't been for the Ori. Especially with one of their motherships being harried by the Asgard all over the opposite side of the galaxy. The Tok'ra did what they could with the limited resources available to them, but they're main concern was still consolidation and their new birthing program they were working on alongside the Asgard. They still made formidable gatherers of intelligence, though they tended to masquerade as humans more often than not in the new galactic climate. The Free Jaffa saw the most dealings with the Lucian Alliance and had no love for them at all, but they were still fractured internally, especially since Gerak turned to Origin and then just as quickly sacrificed himself to help put an end to what surely would have been the end of Earth as a viable power in the galaxy. Essentially the presence of the Ori only made the Alliance more dangerous. It gave them free reign to act with impunity in many parts of the galaxy, and Earth currently had one battlecruiser, formidable as Odyssey may be, with which to do anything about it.

Sam's portion of that day's briefing had to do with kassa itself. What the plant was and how it worked on a biochemical level on the brains of those who ate it, then branched out into the general methods the Alliance used in order to cultivate and harvest it. Since they sold it as a regular foodstuff instead of something illicit, it usually took a hold of a population even before anyone knew what it did, and usually out in the open where, of course, no one was paying attention. As a maize-like cereal it shared many similarities with varieties of field corn indigenous to Earth, which meant it could essentially be inserted into the Terran food supply almost invisibly. Keeping kassa off Earth therefore, was a very high priority.

The briefing broke up after Sam's presentation with their combined question and answer sessions scheduled for the next day, to give the various participants a chance to absorb any new information and formulate enquiries. Cam sagged slightly in the chair as everyone made their way out and stood up when Sam walked over to his seat.

"Ready to get out of here?" he asked with a hopeful look. She smiled at him, but shook her head.

"Agent Barrett asked to talk with me after the meeting, how about we get together in a little while? There's a pub in Crystal City close by Reagan International, called O'Reardon's." She tilted her head in confusion when he scowled and turned aside. "What is it, Cam?"

"I have... bad memories of O'Reardon's." he said softly then looked at her in confusion when she blinked in surprise. "Back in '93, I went to meet you," he frowned slightly when there was no recognition in her eyes, "you told me you were dating Hanson and slapped me across the face when I called him a douchebag." She looked at him incredulously.

"What? I _dated_ Hanson? Jonas Hanson?" She nearly gagged, then her eyes widened. "I slapped you?" He looked at her in surprise as she just raised a hand to his cheek. "That never..." She looked at him for a long moment, her gaze changing to one of concern. "We can talk about it if you want, Cam, later, somewhere not O'Reardon's." He nodded, his mind racing at this unexpected difference between his reality and hers.

"Was your Cam's call-sign 'Shaft'?" he asked softly and she nodded. That hadn't changed then.

"He changed it sometime after I left the Gulf, after he transferred to Japan." she replied. Definitely hadn't changed. "He never told me why."

"You never went to Galar." he breathed and she looked at him askance. "Later." he croaked and gave her arm a squeeze. "You said Agent Barrett wanted to speak with you." She nodded with a little frown. "Call me, I'm on my cell." She nodded again and leaned forward to kiss him lightly before turning to leave. He sat down heavily and let his head fall into his hands for several minutes.

* * *

The Pentagon, Washington D.C., March 2006 (alternate reality)

She watched him for a moment from the door, her heart aching fiercely as she watched his head hanging down, clutched in his hands. What could have happened to him. What connected O'Reardon's in '93, his transfer to Japan, him changing his call-sign, and Galar of all places. And her dating Jonas Hanson? Holy Hannah, no. The man had been a pit viper in her reality. She was decidedly worried for Cameron and almost wanted to tell Malcolm she couldn't go, but something told her this was a conversation they would need to have. The sooner the better. She walked out and headed for the elevator in the direction she knew led to the NID offices.

After flashing her ID badge several times and nodding her way through a couple of security checkpoints she finally arrived at Agent Barrett's office at the main NID department agency. He smiled and grabbed his jacket as he motioned for her to head back out.

"We're going somewhere?" she asked apprehensively.

"Well, I was hoping we could do a bit of comparative analysis between our different realities. And a bit of catching up." he mentioned with a light smile. Sam frowned slightly.

"I'd like to catch up, Malcolm, I'm sure you can appreciate how important it is for me to make sure I meet with friends of Sam's who will have questions or problems now that I am here, essentially usurping her identity." she said softly. "Only, I'm not sure I have a lot of time for anything that will take a while tonight."

"I understand, I'm just wondering whether in your reality you and the other me," he paused and chuckled, "that just sounds so strange when I say it. I was wondering if we worked together to find Ba'al while he was hiding here on Earth?" Sam's eyes widened precipitously and she stopped walking in the middle of the corridor.

"Ba'al was here on Earth?" she asked in a piercing whisper as she looked around. Barrett chuckled and motioned her on towards the elevator even as she stared at him incredulously. "I really have to read those mission reports from before I arrived. Could he still be here? Or some of his clones?" That was something she'd had trouble believing when she came through to this reality, that Ba'al had a small army of clones of himself running around, but after hearing about his death at least twice since arriving she had to believe it. He pressed the button for the ground floor before replying.

"As far as we know, not anymore, but we're still looking. We've been pretty hard on the Trust. Athena is still out there, but as far as Ba'al goes, he's changed his plans to focus off Earth." he said before the elevator disgorged them not too far from the front entrance. Malcolm looked at her with a hint of hopefulness in his eyes and Sam had to shake her head slightly as they began walking towards the security checkpoint. "I understand things must be a little up in the air for you right now, what with taking over a dead woman's life and trying to make sure the people you knew remember you in mostly similar ways. Well, I'll just say it, during that mission, Sam mentioned that she was kinda seeing someone. And I was wondering if that still applied." Sam looked at him sadly and sighed. He was a good guy, but he still held on to a hope she would see him as more than a friend, which she just couldn't.

"Not kinda. Not anymore." she replied and he blinked. "I'm really sorry, Malcolm. I think you're a great guy, but for a long time when I think of my future I've only been able to see one person." They were past all the checkpoints and walking across the broad foyer leading towards the main entrance.

"And now..." he prompted. She looked up and spotted Cameron just making his way through a door to the outside, he turned his head and spotted her almost as if she'd called out to him. He smiled softly as he lifted his cover on to his head and she canted her head slightly to the side. He glanced at Barrett next to her as the doors closed, but took her drift and stopped a little ways from the doors.

"And he is my future. Even here." she replied, turning to face Barrett. "I'm sorry, Malcolm. I have to go now. I hope you can understand." Barrett was still looking where her eyes had been following Cam in his dress blues and she saw the understanding building in his gaze.

"Yeah, Sam." he replied with a smile. "Next time you're in D.C. maybe we can grab some coffee, as friends." She nodded and touched his arm for a moment before heading for the door.

* * *

Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C., March 2006 (alternate reality)

She was holding his hand as he looked up at the great statue of Abraham Lincoln gazing down the reflecting pool towards the tall needle of the Washington Monument. He always felt calm whenever he came here, to stand under the gaze of someone who'd seen some of the darkest moments of America's history as a nation. He closed his eyes and sighed as he turned around and pulled Sam along down the steps to the edge of the water. She gripped his hand tightly, unsure what was happening with him. He was gripping her hand a little tightly in return as well, he was afraid though. Afraid she'd run from him. He realised he had to give her that choice, so he let her hand go. She looked down at their hands for a moment before releasing her own grip in confusion.

"You read the reports about Galar?" he asked softly and she nodded, having gone over them when she'd been asked to take the Galaran memory device to Petersen so Cam could share his memories with Lt. Colonel Ferguson. "I feel bad for Lieutenant Lewis. She was only supposed to come to check over the viability of the tech." Sam tilted her head to the side. She knew Lieutenant Riley Lewis, bright young red-head, newly minted out of the Academy and specially selected for the SGC thanks to her technical aptitude. Sam realised the young woman had probably only been on that mission because Sam had died the month before.

"Cam, I know what's in the reports, I know you were accused of murdering a Galaran scientist, a Dr. Reya Varick." she said softly, conscious of the proximity of any tourists on this chilly evening as dusk set in. "I know you were proved innocent though, that the memory of the crime was implanted into your head." He nodded.

"Riley was out of her depth after the murder." he said with a sigh. "She was given the impossible task of monitoring what the Galarans were doing at the same time as she was trying to keep me sane. And I don't even want to know what she must have been thinking of me as her commanding officer, accused of murder, confessed to it even, and then managing to exonerate himself by admitting to committing something just as bad." He shook his head. "If Sam had been there..." He turned to look at Sam. "If you had been there..."

"I read about that, Cam, I just didn't know what it meant." she admitted. "Something just as bad?" He closed his eyes still unprepared to talk about that, not until he admitted some other things first.

"My memories of that night on Galar are still hazy, there are gaps." He looked at her with his brows furrowed. "You... Sam had died a few weeks before, I could only throw myself in the work to keep from thinking about it. She... Reya reminded me of you in many ways. A scientist, passionate about her work and about sharing her knowledge with her fellow Galarans. She smiled at me and it hurt a little less." He had to look down as the sight of Sam's eyes was making him very uncomfortable, it wasn't a look of betrayal or anger, just depths of understanding. "I couldn't in the end, it was far too soon. I know that much. I'm sure of it. That's something I know through all the blurriness and gaps and false memories." He took a deep breath and looked down along the water as the last rays of the setting sun flickered slightly over the wind-whipped surface. "I had to prove I didn't kill her though and it nearly broke me." he admitted and she slipped a hand in his. He looked down and closed his eyes. "I had to relive it, the murder, over and over." She gripped his hand almost painfully. "And it was useless, they couldn't tell if it was fake. Not without something to compare it to." He glanced up at her then. "Something I had actually done, something... comparable."

"What does that mean, Cameron. I can't believe you've ever-" She stopped when he laid his fingers over her lips.

"Let me finish, Sam." he breathed and he let his hand drop after she nodded. "Not long after you left for the Pentagon, I was transferred to the 19th FS out of Al Dhafra in the Emirates..." He needed to move, he couldn't just stand here like this. He pulled Sam along around the side of the pool and began walking down its length. As his feet stepped one in front of the other, slowly, rhythmically, he managed to tell her about the mission shadowing the convoy, about how the intel led them to believe the leader of a a terrorist group with ties to several training camps throughout the Middle East was travelling in one of the vehicles, and how it had been his thumb which had launched the bomb which obliterated the trucks and cars as they moved along the desert road far below. He could see the horror in her eyes and he tried to turn away only for her to stop him and pull him around to face her with a hand on his cheek.

"Was the intel wrong? Was it just-" she stopped when he nodded and her features darkened, a scowl coming down over her eyes. He knew that any second now she'd let go of his hand and walk away. "Cameron, you are one of the best men I've ever met, honourable and strong and moral. What happened wasn't your fault." He blinked in surprise at her reaction even as his jaw clenched with the knowledge she was wrong about him. "You need to believe me when I say that, Cam." she whispered and he just shook his head and looked away. She let go of his hand at last, but he could still feel the heat of her gaze on him. "Look at me, Cameron." she ordered in a deceptively soft voice and he couldn't deny her. "I know what I believe, I will show you the Cameron Mitchell I know, the man you are is alive inside me, in the love you have given me." she said, lifting a hand to her heart even as she burned him with the fierceness of her gaze, fierce not with anger, but with determination. "_I_ know you, Cam. I _know_ you." She slipped her arms around his waist and kissed him gently. He didn't want to accept her belief in him, but he needed to, or he'd crumble and disappear right there in her arms.

He told her everything as they walked from the Memorial to their hotel. She refused to hear anything about Jonas Hanson, his counterpart in her reality obviously didn't care about hiding his ways behind charm and affability. As she pulled him along through the foyer of the small hotel and into the elevator she was surprised to learn of her father's part in Cameron staying in the Air Force, telling him she hadn't known he'd taken any interest at all in her Academy friend.

They had adjoining rooms with a connecting door between them, and had decided fairly quickly not to sleep separately during their trip. They used the other room for work and there were several secure cases containing briefing folders and materials they'd memorised in preparation for their presentations piled on the bed. The other is where they ate and slept, and as they entered, Sam was already shrugging off her jacket and helping him take his off. She pulled him into an embrace and the feel of her against him just brought it all home to him that she hadn't walked away from him, that she had stayed. She pushed him to sit at the foot of the bed and stood in front of him, snaking her hands around his neck and shoulders and pulling him against her. He slipped his arms around her waist and nestled his cheek against the breast of her dress shirt. She ran her fingers through his hair and leant down to kiss the top of his head, a gesture which was becoming familiar to him now and welcome. He just wanted to feel her fingers smoothing down his hair forever, smoothing away the frayed and tattered edges of his soul at the same time.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 12**

Stargate Command, April 2006 (alternate reality)

"Why don't you ever ask me about the you from my reality, Teal'c?" she asked with a glance at the Jaffa warrior as he moved slowly in front of one of her shelves as she checked the connections between the Tok'ra long-range subspace communicator and the small computer she'd set up to control it. Teal'c paused in his examination and glanced at her over his shoulder. "I know, I know, 'this is the only reality of consequence', but aren't you even curious?"

"I am curious as to why you believe it is of consequence, Colonel Carter." he intoned as he resumed his scrutiny of one of the finds they'd made in Merlin's vault under Glastonbury Tor, Dr. Lee had brought it to her and she'd noticed a few things which might get him back on track with the device. She'd take it back to his lab to set it up, hers was cluttered enough as it was. "I have noticed subtle differences in your personality from that of the original Colonel Carter, but nothing I would consider meaningful, or which could not be explained by current circumstances." He lifted his gaze from the oddly shaped input device to glance her way once more. "I expect things are much the same with your evaluation of myself. Or you would make far more mention of any such distinctions." He smiled ever so slightly when she grumbled. He had a point.

"I guess humans are just more interested in that sort of thing than Jaffa." she muttered and he nodded slightly.

"This was part of Merlin's hoard." he mentioned, making her smile a little. He did like to indulge her lecture-mode every so often.

"That's what I've heard, Bill brought it to me. He's a little stumped by it and thought I might be able to take a crack at it. Otherwise it will be sent to Area 51 and getting anything back from them is tough." She paused in her calibrations as she remembered how anxious Dr. Lee had been for her to look over the device. "He thinks it's important." Teal'c nodded, they liked to rib the bespectacled scientist, but they all had a soft spot for him too. Some even a grudging respect.

"Have you learned anything?" he asked as he turned to face her. She nodded.

"Enough that I want to set it up in his lab again to spend more time on it." she replied as she fixed a last connection to the power generator and the communicator came to life. "As soon as I get this up and running with the final version of the protocol we reverse-engineered from the telemetry from Daniel's communication stone." She grinned when she glanced over at the display attached to the small computer as it flashed various diagnostics before prompting her to continue. She quickly typed in some commands to get a bit more in-depth data on the checks before she set the main program to execute.

"Hey! The lights are blinking!" came Cameron's voice from her door as she glanced over, smiling. "That is pretty cool." he murmured, casting an appraising look over the crystal and metal framework of the communicator. "So it's on? What's it doing?"

"Just listening. It's all out of our hands from now on." she said with a smile as he came over and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. She lay her hand over the top of his.

"Right, right, still don't know what this is all about though." he said with a lifted brow and she bit her lip, having forgotten that. She was about to speak when the klaxons started wailing and lights started flashing a warning for an unscheduled wormhole and they all stood and headed out the door towards the control room. It was probably just a team coming in ahead of their expected arrival time, but you never knew.

* * *

Colorado Springs, April 2006 (alternate reality)

Cam leaned over slightly as he steered around the bend and smiled when Sam's hands around his waist tightened just a little to compensate. The feel of her pressed tightly against his back, even through two layers of leather, was his own idea of Heaven just at that moment. He throttled back on his silver on blue '71 Moto Guzzi California. It had been his Dad's bike, given to Cam when he got his license – a little to his mother's horror. He remembered how his father had doted on the air-cooled V-twin for the couple of years before he'd gifted the machine to him. Rebuilding the engine had been the project that got Frank Mitchell metaphorically back on his feet after his crash and forced retirement from the Air Force. He'd struggled for a couple of years; taken a job as a consultant with an aeronautics firm out of Topeka, but it had been rebuilding the motorcycle which had really brought back the man from where he'd holed up in the depths of his own psyche. Which is why Cameron would love this bike for the rest of his days. Having Sam clutching at the front of his jacket as she rode pillion was a nice inducement too.

He pulled off onto the gravelled lane to an overlook spot across from the city itself and cut the engine after he put his foot out and came to a stop. Sam patted his stomach once before getting off the back as he put out the kickstand and dismounted himself. She took off her helmet and shook out her blonde locks. She looked amazing, even if her hair was still plastered to her forehead a little. He pulled his helmet off and hooked it over his handlebar and took off his gloves as she leaned forward to kiss him gently. He smiled and pulled his fingers lightly through her fringe. She smiled and blew air through her pursed lips to send it aflutter before laying her own helmet atop the pillion. She took a deep breath of the crisp spring air and let it out slowly before moving to gaze out over the view. Cam moved up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist while she leaned back against him.

They'd been riding several times now, sometimes they both rode his Moto Guzzi, at other times they went out with Sam on her '47 Indian Chief. Unfortunately, it didn't have a pillion seat of its own so they couldn't ride tandem on it. He had to admit he loved seeing her Indian, it was a beautiful machine, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't prefer the days they went out together on his California. He was struck by the reminder they'd soon have another choice open to them. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his phone, holding it in front of them both and switching to the photo gallery. Sam turned her head to look at him quizzically for a moment, but she faced forward again and looked down at the phone and the picture he'd queued up of a gleaming inline four B20E resting up on a stand in his garage with it's silvered rocker casing sitting atop the cylinder head, which was brightly painted in red. He'd taken the picture the night before just after he'd finished reassembling everything. Sam lifted her hand and covered her mouth with her fingers.

"Cameron, that's..." she breathed and he nodded, her hair rustling against his cheek.

"Just need to lift it back in and recouple it to the drivetrain, hydraulics and electrics and she's good to go." he concluded and her breath hitched. "Still needs a test of course, but I'm confident."

"Can I... see..." she faltered as her emotions overwhelmed her and he smiled at that.

"Of course, sweetness." he murmured into her ear and she shrugged her shoulders at the tone of his voice before turning her head to look at him with a smile. "I want you to be there." She turned around in his arms and nuzzled his cheek before finding his lips with hers. "I want to see your smile when you hear her roar to life." She smiled and let out a low purr before kissing him again and running her hands through the hair at the back of his head.

"When?" she asked after some rather breathless kisses.

"Next weekend?" he offered and she nodded. Snuggling against him and resting her head in the crook of his neck. "I think she's missed you, your P1800." he whispered.

"I've missed her." she admitted softly. "Do you have more pictures?" she asked after a moment and he chuckled, holding up the phone again and letting her flick through the pictures he'd been taking all along the process. She smiled happily, asking him what it was she had missed when she attempted to fix her poorly Volvo. He moved them to one of the picnic tables off to the side and began telling her in detail all about what he'd done since stripping the engine all those months ago. He smiled when she reached to hold his hand after he mentioned how he'd taken possession of the car after Sam's passing. He put his other hand over hers and nodded as she leaned against his side while he continued with the recitation of his work log.

* * *

Stargate Command, April 2006 (alternate reality)

"Okay, Dr. Super Genius. Explain to me how come I don't fall through the floor when I'm out of phase?" he asked with a condescending tilt of his head and his hands on his hips. She sighed.

"Because your brain can't handle the idea of the ground under your feet not being solid." She looked down at his feet with a smirk. "Do you really think you're actually standing on that floor right now?"

"What are you talking about?" he cried with a glare then hopped from foot to foot. "Of course I-" he stopped and his eyes widened as she slowly sank into the concrete below her feet. "Don't... don't do that!" He grabbed at her arm and pulled her up. "Never do that again!" She laughed.

"It's all in your head, Cam. Just like you feel uncomfortable letting people walk through you so you step out of their way. Your brain is hard-wired to walk on solid ground so it's tricking you into believing you're actually walking on concrete instead of... well, nothing. I mean, have you heard any sound from your footsteps since we got zapped?" He glared at her and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Okay, so how come we're not pulled to the center of the Earth by gravity, or flung off into space by inertia?" he demanded.

"Because I don't think gravity has any effect in this dimension, Cam, classical mechanics definitely doesn't seem to apply and will seems to be the impetus of all motion. The only thing keeping us in Earth's general frame of reference is our primitive hind-brain not accepting the fact we're mostly decoupled from the three physical dimensions of space." She grinned at him. "You believe you're standing on that spot, and so you are." He cursed and scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"I wish you hadn't told me any of that." he admitted to her light laughter.

"Just don't think about it and you'll be okay." She smirked at him. "You're good at that." He turned a glare on her and began stalking towards her as she giggled and backed up. He started moving more quickly and she began chuckling and turning around to beat a hasty retreat.

"Get back here, you..." he growled and began to run after her through the corridors, heedless of passing through the occasional airman or scientist. She laughed and darted through a wall only for him to follow after her. "You can't get away from me, woman!" She let him catch her somewhere near the infirmary and he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her up off the 'floor' as she giggled breathlessly. He turned her around and made to push her back against a wall, only for them to pass through into the infirmary itself. He growled. "Okay, so how come my brain isn't tricking me into believing the walls are solid too?" She smiled and slipped her arms over his shoulders and around his neck, then kissed him gently as he held her tightly against him.

"Remember that we walk through spaces which matter usually occupies all the time, doorways, bushes, tall grass, even fog and mist. For some reason our brains aren't as fussy about the solidity of vertical surfaces as they are of horizontal surfaces." she murmured, biting lightly on his lower lip. He lifted an eyebrow and glanced at one of the infirmary beds. She followed his gaze and laughed. "Not all horizontal surfaces! Things which are obviously objects definitely fall into the category of acceptable candidates for intangibility." She slipped out of his arms and moved her hand through the bed, then glanced over her shoulder with a smile and tried again only for her hand to stop atop the covered mattress. She then hopped up and perched herself on it, laughing at his incredulous look.

He glared at her and walked over to the bed, frowning heavily at it for several moments. He reached out and laid his hand over it only for it to provide no barrier to his fingers. She laughed and flicked at his chin with a finger before putting on her best attempt at a Laurence Fishburne tone of voice.

"Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles, in this place? _Do you think that's air you're breathing_ now?" She grinned as his lips drew into a tight line and he scowled at her. "Honestly, Cameron. Electromagnetic repulsion ordinarily keeps our hands from passing through solid matter in the three physical dimensions of space, but since we're not completely in the three physical dimensions of space we can only interact with other objects in this dimension. I'm not actually sitting on this bed, not really. We can't physically interact with any matter in normal space, even the air we breathe. The only reason you're breathing in and out is because your brain believes it has to. I doubt our cells even need oxygen while in this state." He closed his eyes and sighed and she hopped off the bed again. "I'm just glad that electromagnetism still let's me kiss you since we're both here together." She smiled and leaned into him and sought his lips with hers.

"All hail Maxwell." Cam muttered in between kisses and she smiled against his lips, only slightly surprised he remembered his elementary physics.

* * *

Stargate Command, May 2006 (alternate reality)

Cameron glared balefully at Daniel in the elevator next to him. Daniel gave him a coquettish tilt of his head and looked right back at him with his hands splayed out over his hips. Cam shuddered slightly at the visual and if he wasn't so sure that it was actually Vala Mal Doran inhabiting Daniel's body at that moment he'd have thought his friend had gone and touched some bit of alien junk that had scrambled his little grey cells. Actually, he still wasn't sure that's not what actually happened.

"Yes and no, Vala." he said in reply to her earlier entreaty. Vala in Daniel's body frowned slightly in confusion.

"Now, Cameron, your answer doesn't make any sense." she muttered leaning in a bit closer. "Either you told her you loved her or you didn't." Cam's lips drew into a tight line as he lifted a finger to prod Vala's forehead and push her back slightly.

"I didn't tell Sam I loved her, not before she died." he replied quietly. Vala's jaw went slack in shock as the face she was borrowing from Daniel paled visibly.

"She died?" she asked in a hoarse whisper, pain etched across her face. "Cameron, I'm so sorry." He looked her way with a grateful smile. He was glad of the genuine emotion Vala was displaying, it was for a real person after all and more surprising for her only having known the woman for a couple of days before being sucked into a different galaxy. The elevator opened and he stepped out into the corridor, stopping when Vala didn't follow him, the pained grimace still prevalent on Daniel's face. "Cameron, I'm confused." He nodded, motioning for her to follow.

"I know, it's a confusing situation." he said simply, leading the bodysnatching woman forward. She bounded around him and stopped him with a hand on his chest.

"You said... you said we were going to see her." she began. He nodded. "And that answer you gave to my question... Are we going to talk to a ghost?" He looked at her incredulously.

"What?" He blinked and frowned slightly. "Why would you think 'ghost'?" Vala looked at him in confusion. "Vala, you're talking to me across the vast gulf of galaxies using my friend's body as a glorified telephone. You fell through a black hole to get where you are!" She glared at him with her hands on her hips and he sighed, reaching out and leading her forward with a tug on Daniel's elbow. "We're going to see Sam, she's just not the Sam you knew, she's from an alternate reality. And I told _her_ I love her." he finished. Vala again bounded around him with a scrutinising look in her borrowed eyes. She stopped him once more with a hand on his chest, just before the door to the commissary.

"You told her?" she asked and he nodded, walking around his friend and tugging on an elbow to get them moving once more.

"Yes, I told her I love her." He stood in the doorway and spotted Sam eating some jello in the next row over. He smiled and pointed her out to Vala, who blinked in confusion.

"She looks alive." the smuggler said hesitantly with a half-hearted grin. Cam frowned at her before moving towards Sam's table. He couldn't help his own smile when she looked up and gave him a bright grin. She glanced at who she thought was Daniel and then looked down to scoop up some more jello.

"How is _this_ possible?" he asked, pointing the fingers of both hands towards Vala, who put her hands on Daniel's hips and canted her head while she looked at Sam. She slowly pulled the spoon from her mouth as she looked at him in confusion. Then her eyes widened in a mixture of realisation and delight and Cam closed his eyes momentarily to keep from being blinded by the sight.

"Oh, my God! It worked!" Sam cried and he opened his eyes to see her rushing around the table and throwing her arms around Daniel's shoulders. Which made Vala jump in surprise. "It's so good to see you, Vala!" She pulled back slightly with a chuckle at what she was saying, then she glanced at Cameron for a moment before turning more solemn and returning her gaze to the startled bodysnatcher. "And thank you. Thank you so much." Vala looked at Cam in confusion as Sam again hugged her tight. She awkwardly patted the blonde on the back.

"What, um, for, Colonel Carter?" she asked hesitantly.

"For saving this reality from the Ori." Sam replied seriously as she finally pulled back and came to stand next to Cam and slipped her hand in his. Vala looked down at their entwined fingers and just grinned.

"I have no idea what's going on, but I love it when someone praises me. Especially for something as grand as that!" She rubbed her hands together. "So what's the going rate for saving the galaxy? No!" She held up a finger in front of them as her grin spread wider. "An entire reality."

"I'll buy you breakfast later." Cam deadpanned with a look at Sam, at which she smiled sheepishly in reply. Oh, yes, she had some explaining to do. Daniel's face betrayed Vala's shock and dismay as she sputtered at the injustice. Cam just rolled his eyes and pointed back out of the commissary. Sam smiled at him before shepherding the protesting thief from the room.

"As your saviour I demand chocolate ice cream!" Vala cried in Daniel's voice while everyone in the commissary watched them leave.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. This one will be different to the others in that I plan to keep adding to it little by little. It may spur me to add on to the other Ripple Effects later on.

**Ripple Effect – Confluence of Circumstance**

**Chapter 13**

Cameron Mitchell's house, Colorado Springs, May 2006 (alternate reality)

Sam killed the engine of her P1800 after parking in Cam's driveway and just sat in silence for a moment with a silly smile on her face, thinking back to the weekend when she'd sat on the workbench in his garage as he hoisted the small inline four back into the front of the Volvo. She'd helped him reconnect it to the transmission and electrics then helped him check over everything from mechanical range of motion to fluid levels. She remembered how nervous she'd been as she sat in the driver's seat after he'd put a bit of fuel in the tank and stood next to the front wheel well, looking into the open engine bay. It took a few goes to get everything going after he'd primed the fuel lines and given her the signal, but when the engine finally turned over it was as if Sam heard her baby singing again for the first time since she'd bought her back in Cambridge. She had cried.

Since then Cam had done some work on the exterior of the car, but he admitted he'd need to take her somewhere to do justice to the interior. She just shook her head as she ran her hand over the dash before stepping out of the car and moving to open the trunk to get her groceries. She was going to make him some paella today, so she'd bought mussels and prawns and scallops as well as mixed vegetables and lots of spices. They'd kept up the three nights a week routine of cooking for each other for several weeks now, even if they were off-world and the meal was just some variety of MRE. One of them would make sure to bring something along to spice it up, invariably letting Daniel and Teal'c in on it as well. They'd gone out to eat also, on dates to restaurants, or just for a quick meal before catching a movie, or when visiting friends. Carolyn, for instance, enjoyed foisting her cooking on the unwary sometimes, especially her father. All told, they ate far more meals together than apart and they both liked it that way. She walked to his front door and unlocked it with her key.

"Cameron, I'm home." she called out loudly before freezing with the door only partly closed. He poked his head in from around the corner to his... their... living room, watching her carefully while she turned to look at him with wide eyes.

"You sure about that?" he asked and she could only nod slowly in response. He gave her a little smile before his head disappeared from sight again. "Better close the door then." She complied and hurried to the kitchen, finding him coming in from the dining room. She dropped her ingredients on the central island and moved over to slip into his embrace. She nestled her head into the crook of his neck and he lifted a hand to run his fingers into her hair. "We'll figure it all out, sweetness." She chuckled and nodded, squeezing him tightly.

"I suppose this was always my home, in this reality. This is where I first stayed after getting off base after all." she offered simply. Cam chuckled and nodded. He pushed her back slightly and tilted her head up so he could kiss her gently, then brushed the fingers of both his hands over her cheeks and into her hair.

"Remember, that day in the other reality when I asked you to come with me to mine, and you teased me about asking you to move in with me?" he murmured softly as her smile grew slowly from the feel of his fingers against her skin and the remembrance of the day. She nodded, her eyes shining brightly to match her smile. He leaned forward and pressed his cheek to hers so his lips were just over her ear. "Would you like to move in with me, Sam?" he asked in a whisper. She giggled and nodded, kissing his lips after he pulled back.

* * *

Stargate Command, May 2006 (alternate reality)

"Damn it, Mitchell! You loitering there isn't going to make me work faster!" Daniel cried after glancing up from his notebooks for the eighth time to find Cam hovering with intent near his table. In between their other missions, the archaeologist had been researching everything he could get his hands on about the planet whose address they'd found in the phasing device's logs. Even getting his body hijacked by Vala – admittedly, intentionally – had only slowed him down for a day.

"I know, Jackson. I just love messing with you." he replied with a grin before sitting down in a chair opposite Daniel's position and tossing an apple he'd brought from the mess towards the archaeologist.

"Can't you go bother, Sam?" asked the linguist as he vainly tried to return his attention to the manuscript he'd been translating for the last three hours.

"I could I suppose." Cam murmured before pausing for a long moment. "She likes it though." Daniel glared at his friend over the rim of his glasses and pointed a finger at him.

"There are limits, Mitchell." he warned in a low, threatening voice. "Boundaries which must not be crossed. You don't get to bother me for your own amusement. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, there are things up with which I will not put." Cam looked at Daniel askance and took a bite out of his own apple.

"Wasn't he talking about ending sentences with prepositions?" he asked. Daniel's lips pressed together into a thin line.

"You weren't supposed to know that." he muttered.

"I bet you hate dangling participles too." Cam teased.

"Shut up." Daniel warned as Cam began chuckling. He took another bite of his apple and frowned slightly at the scrutinising gaze he was getting from the linguist. "How goes the preparation for the whole cohabiting thing?" Daniel asked before taking a big chunk out of the apple he'd been idly turning over in his hands. Cam chewed thoughtfully for a few moments before replying.

"Still a lot to discuss." he began as Daniel canted his head slightly. "Not intent, mind, just details, big and small. That sort of thing." he elaborated, the linguist smiled slightly and nodded before falling quiet for a long minute as he frowned slightly in Cam's direction. He knew his friend was debating whether to voice something... touchy.

"Were you this close to... with..." his head dropped slightly as he sighed. "If she hadn't died, if she..." Cam lifted a hand to his forehead and rubbed the skin over his brow as he looked off to one of Daniel's shelves.

"That visit to the alternate reality, it opened my eyes, Jackson." he said softly. "It made me realise that Sam is... was..." He gritted his teeth at the awkwardness of it all. "Sam is who I want to be with. Meant to be with. She's my touchstone." He looked over at Daniel and something about the look in his eyes made the linguist close his own. "Would Sam and I be moving in together right now if she hadn't died? I can't answer that. I just can't. I loved her, Daniel, I still do, but Sam, _this_ Sam, she's not the same woman. She isn't. But she's Sam and if I try to separate them in my head, in my heart... I can't do it, Daniel."

"You'd feel guilty?"

"No! I'd go crazy! It would mess me up." He took in a deep breath before continuing. "I'll never forget her, Jackson, but Sam isn't a replacement for her. I can't really explain it." Daniel stood up and walked around his table. He thumped Cam's shoulder with the fist still clutching his half-eaten apple and began pulling him up from his seat.

"Come on, fly boy, let's go bother Sam in her lab."

* * *

Ori Supergate, above P3Y-229, June 2006 (alternate reality)

"Oh, my God." Sam stared out of the corner of her eye at the vast ripples flowing across the event horizon of the massive wormhole which had just formed inside the Supergate. Her gaze flicked back towards the battle raging in the distance as several O'Neill class battlecruisers were engaging the Do'ci's flagship after it spilled out of hyperspace almost right on top of the small fleet of Free Jaffa, Tok'ra and Tau'ri ships. The Korolev arrived soon after the Supergate established a wormhole and Teal'c had even managed to convince the Lucian Alliance to bring in a handful of ships. She watched as Odyssey's Asgard beam weapons fired away at the massive Ori ship as it crept into range, the four arcs of its hull enclosing a huge ball of light which she knew powered the vessel in some way she couldn't fathom. The powerful shields seemed to buckle and warp under the assault, but did not fail. And now the Ori were going to get reinforcements from their home galaxy through this wormhole.

She felt it, as a tingling in her skin, when the first ship came through. She flinched involuntarily at the sight of it emerging from the Supergate. She almost laughed when she saw it wasn't anywhere near as large as the Do'ci's ship. She shook her head at the ridiculousness of her fears, such a monster couldn't fit through the 'gate anyway. Then again, just one of them was more than enough. How many of these smaller ships would come through was the question. How many did they have to stop. She tried her radio again, desperately hoping someone could beam her aboard. She had an awful feeling coursing through her entire body as she watched the bone white hull of the Ori ship slipping through the event horizon. She had to get on the Korolev, Cam was on the Korolev. The shooting started almost immediately, even before the last of the six ships emerged. The Asgard fleet did its best to draw off the massive flagship from the main battle, but that left only Odyssey and the Korolev with anything which could even dent these ships' shields. She remembered just how ineffective the Prometheus' weapons had been. She was shouting into her radio now, even though she knew no one would be able to beam her aboard, not with their shields up.

The Ha'taks swooped in, Odyssey and Korolev combined their fire on one of the Ori ships. Sam's breath caught in her throat when she saw the Asgard beams cut through the shields and rip into its hull. Several of the Ha'taks added their plasma beams to the attack and the ship exploded, its siblings drifting away from the blast waves of its erupting power core. Their own weapons were taking a terrible toll on the Tok'ra and Jaffa vessels. Sam gritted her teeth in frustration as she could only watch as those energy lances she still remembered in her nightmares tore through shield and hull and right on through to the space beyond each ship they destroyed. If only the Asgard could stop that flagship, if only they could do now what they hadn't been able to do over the ten months and pierce its shields before it fled once more into hyperspace. If they could then the O'Neill-class cruisers could... she looked around at the twisted metal tumbling through space ahead of the line of Ori warships. The flagship slipped away into hyperspace and all the Asgard ships slipped after it save Kvasir's, it could not be allowed a moment's respite and they knew it. Kvasir wheeled his vessel about and came up alongside Odyssey as it and the Korolev once more poured out their wrath against the Ori, another vessel succumbing to the power of the Asgard weapons.

Then Sam's heart stopped. Time solidified around her, congealed and then fractured as she watched a pair of energy beams slicing through space towards the Korolev. She saw its shields flare greenish-yellow, then dimple, then warp and then cave in. A fraction of a second which never ended, which she fervently hoped would never, ever end. Her jaw went slack when time did go on, her eyes welled up when the next beat of her heart signalled the lance ripping through the Korolev's neck and splitting the vessel asunder, her mind went blank when something inside the great ship's belly erupted in a silent torrent of fire and gas and twisted trinium alloy.

She heard her heart thumping in her chest. Still beating. Still counting out the moments of her life, every moment she had already lived since he'd surely died. Her vision went slightly clouded, blurred, not from tears, but from the pressure behind her eyes, the surge and roar she could feel and hear in the base of her skull and the depths of her ear canals, each thump from her treacherous heart causing her head to nod back and forth slightly from the force of its beat. Her dull eyes could no longer see the Ori ships moving away under power after destroying Kvasir's O'Neill-class cruiser, leaving her in the emptiness of infinity with nothing but the wreckage of two galaxies' defenders and the beating of her own invidious heart. She tilted her head back and took in a great lungful of air before screaming out her rage and terror into the confines of her spacesuit. Leaving only a single word left in her entire existence as she clenched her jaw, screwed shut her eyes against the tears and whispered his name for only herself to hear in the darkness she could only imagine in her nightmares.

"Cameron."

* * *

A/N: Season break. To be continued.


End file.
